TheManWithNoFace Posted January 28, 2015 Share Posted January 28, 2015 The probabilistic tool is still experimental. Nevertheless, I believe placing the emphasis probabilistic information when working with public officials is probably far better than sticking with largely or wholly deterministic information. At the same time, I believe the Mayor of NYC, Governor of NY, etc., should develop a protocol on how to address various storm scenarios (actions + lead time + communication). The process by which probabilistic information is translated into actions should be fairly automatic and objective, and it should take into consideration the major economic and social costs related to such measures. Such an approach would lead to greater consistency, more rapid implementation, greater advance notice, etc. , as well as mitigation of costs in cases of error. Moreover, shutting down the underground portion of the subway system made little sense. In cases such as hurricanes, it would make sense, as parts of the subway system could be flooded by storm surge. In cases of snowstorms, the underground system proved capable of even handling the 26.9" snowfall in 2006. The above-ground system can be impacted and that's where the focus should have been. Shutting down the entire system essentially maximized economic cost exposure in the case of an error and given an absence of empirical data, had an uncertain impact on advancing safety. Honestly, I am shocked that this kind of protocol isn't already in place. It's 2015! Our NWS offices are tweeting, Facebooking, and probably would snap chat if they thought it'd be useful. Some of the comments from the offices and government are just dumbfounding to me, that there are not already regularly coordinated meetings between the office and local decisionmakers in government, transportation, sanitation, etc. I read somewhere that one of the east coast offices had a representative "at every briefing with the local government," but it had a tone that seriously implied that this was novel and unique. How is this not already happening as policy? It's great that everyone is going to look at improving communication between the offices and those that need to know, but it's a ball drop that the protocols aren't already in place. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wxman Posted January 29, 2015 Share Posted January 29, 2015 Having time to reflect, I think my considered opinion is that $hit happens. There is no fix given the current state of technology. The NWS and other pros have to give the public the best forecast they can, I think they did, and (once this is forgotten) will do so again even when there is doubt. And, as DT just pointed out, some of the most notorious busts had considerable if not universal model support beforehand. I thought the cone of uncertainty idea had merit, and maybe for entertainment it does...but in real life how does that information help? A cone of uncertainty with Sandy would have shown that a complete miss was possible til nearly the end. How would that help anyone? At this point, most know that ANY forecast can bust. People need to live with that fact and move on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CIK62 Posted January 29, 2015 Share Posted January 29, 2015 I agree a Cone of Uncertainity graphic would not have helped for the reason given. I think I was one of the first people to know what could happen here where I am in CI because I saw the EURO's left hand turn and thought 1821 immediately. With the GFS going another run without showing this anomalous turn, the CoU might not have budged much. On the comical relief side, the reason Upton got this wrong is because the chief meteorologist failed to open his Christmas gift. It was a blank synoptic chart of the Mid-Atlantic to New England and a box of darts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jm1220 Posted January 29, 2015 Share Posted January 29, 2015 The real "bust" was probably the NWS not putting enough uncertainty in their wording (something Mr. Uccellini acknowledged himself), much more than any model bust. Yeah the Euro was only off by 20-30 miles from giving nyc a much larger storm, but it was off by over a foot just west of that. Everyone knew the cutoff would be dramatic, and 50 miles a few days out is a pretty damn good job. I think they should've gone with 12-18" or 12-24" on Sunday with the possibility for more, while explaining that there is still significant uncertainty as to the outcome. This left another day to ramp totals up if needed, and still conveys the potential seriousness of the situation. Instead they went with 24"+ and used historic and crippling to describe the storm. That caused the public to react a certain way and the state/city to initiate shutdowns affecting 10+ million people, which ended up not being needed. There are estimates of $200 million in lost economic activity in NYC alone (not a huge number considering last winter's extreme cold/snow cost upwards of $10 billion, but still significant) because of the shutdowns and people staying inside. It's true that it's better to be safe than sorry, but it was also a head scratcher that they went all in for a top 5 storm in NYC at the minimum (24" is top 5, if not mistaken 24" would be #3 after Feb 2006 and Dec 1947) based mostly on one model. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gymengineer Posted January 29, 2015 Share Posted January 29, 2015 I've been over it, I think you need to accept that fact that this was a bust all around. Even Boston, which ended up with 24.4 inches of snow, only had a liquid equivalent of 1.05", a significant amount less than all the models were forecasting. They were "saved" by very high ratios, just as NYC was saved by the fairly intense and stationary band that formed Monday afternoon. Liquid equivalents are notoriously and frequently far too low for the huge snowstorms up and down the corridor at the ASOS sites. There is no way Boston only had 1" liquid just based on a quick survey of other totals (2.5"-type amounts). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BostonWX Posted January 29, 2015 Share Posted January 29, 2015 Liquid equivalents are notoriously and frequently far too low for the huge snowstorms up and down the corridor at the ASOS sites. There is no way Boston only had 1" liquid just based on a quick survey of other totals (2.5"-type amounts). Liquid equivalent was very close to 3 inches based on dual pol data. Areas in the city away from logan got around 30-31. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nibor Posted January 29, 2015 Share Posted January 29, 2015 I've been over it, I think you need to accept that fact that this was a bust all around. Even Boston, which ended up with 24.4 inches of snow, only had a liquid equivalent of 1.05", a significant amount less than all the models were forecasting. They were "saved" by very high ratios, just as NYC was saved by the fairly intense and stationary band that formed Monday afternoon. Where did you get that number of 1.05? That seems highly unlikely. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dmillz25 Posted January 29, 2015 Share Posted January 29, 2015 Wasn't Boston in the teens during the brunt of the storm? That was what accounted for the high ratios Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dark Star Posted January 29, 2015 Share Posted January 29, 2015 Correct me if I am wrong, but I thought the cone of uncertainty was applied to hurricanes since the computer models are not well adapted to their movements, and have historically had some pretty chaotic movements. The models are designed to calculate the propagation of short waves and their potential formation into mid latitude cyclones. I do find it interesting that all of the media seem to generate the same forecasts, despite contradicting model outputs. I thought the models were tools, and meant to be interpreted, tweeked and corrected with human experience. Was it easier with just the LFM and Barotropic models? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jm1220 Posted January 29, 2015 Share Posted January 29, 2015 Wasn't Boston in the teens during the brunt of the storm? That was what accounted for the high ratios Surface temps matter little when snow is falling. The temps at 700mb or so where the snow grows matters much more. W CT and MA also got shafted, and suffered from poor snow growth despite cold surface temps. Hartford has as much or even less snow as NYC. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chietanen Posted January 29, 2015 Share Posted January 29, 2015 Where did you get that number of 1.05? That seems highly unlikely. It's from KBOS, daily climate report. I reviewed the radar data afterwards and it's definitely in the 2" range. Was not aware of the inaccuracy of ASOS sites in winter storms. Thanks for the heads up! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheManWithNoFace Posted January 29, 2015 Share Posted January 29, 2015 Correct me if I am wrong, but I thought the cone of uncertainty was applied to hurricanes since the computer models are not well adapted to their movements, and have historically had some pretty chaotic movements. The models are designed to calculate the propagation of short waves and their potential formation into mid latitude cyclones. I do find it interesting that all of the media seem to generate the same forecasts, despite contradicting model outputs. I thought the models were tools, and meant to be interpreted, tweeked and corrected with human experience. Was it easier with just the LFM and Barotropic models? Well, who is going to be the one forecaster willing to step out alone? There's safety in numbers, right? I think there was a severe case of groupthink here, and no one wanted to be the outlier for a historic, blockbuster, crippling blizzard. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MJO812 Posted January 29, 2015 Share Posted January 29, 2015 Time lapse from Eastern LI http://www.nextstopmagazine.com/article/2015/1/28/Really-Cool-Timelapse-of-the-2015-Blizzard-in-Eastern-Long-Island-NY Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Animal Posted March 29, 2015 Share Posted March 29, 2015 Has the leadership as noaa came out with an update on what their intention is to prevent this from occuring again. I got asked about this bust tonight. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amped Posted April 5, 2015 Share Posted April 5, 2015 Has the leadership as noaa came out with an update on what their intention is to prevent this from occuring again. I got asked about this bust tonight. I'd like to see a meteorological explanation of what went wrong with the usually reliable Euro. That was the worst it has ever shat the bed in the short range. It also had problems, but not as bad with 11/7/2012. That was a similar setup. My simple solution, toss Euro only if it significant disagrees with GFS, RGEM, UKMET, and GGEM consensus. Toss the NAM every storm for the rest of eternity. Never go with 24"-36" in unless all the major models are showing it. Hopefully meteorologists have already figured these things out. Like any other organizations I don't expect them to be very upfront about their mistakes, especially since in meteorology you can always blame it on "The Models" if 1 of the 6 models was wrong. IMO forecasters could have done a better job hedging their bets on this one, especially over NYC to Philly corridor. The western half of CT was close enough to the heavy snow that I can reluctantly forgive them for being 20" too high. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Animal Posted April 18, 2015 Share Posted April 18, 2015 I'd like to see a meteorological explanation of what went wrong with the usually reliable Euro. That was the worst it has ever shat the bed in the short range. It also had problems, but not as bad with 11/7/2012. That was a similar setup. My simple solution, toss Euro only if it significant disagrees with GFS, RGEM, UKMET, and GGEM consensus. Toss the NAM every storm for the rest of eternity. Never go with 24"-36" in unless all the major models are showing it. Hopefully meteorologists have already figured these things out. Like any other organizations I don't expect them to be very upfront about their mistakes, especially since in meteorology you can always blame it on "The Models" if 1 of the 6 models was wrong. IMO forecasters could have done a better job hedging their bets on this one, especially over NYC to Philly corridor. The western half of CT was close enough to the heavy snow that I can reluctantly forgive them for being 20" too high. Just wondering if there has been an official review from noaa leadership.Anyone step down at Philly or nyc offices etc. Best. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Animal Posted April 18, 2015 Share Posted April 18, 2015 Just wondering if there has been an official review from noaa leadership. Anyone step down at Philly or nyc offices etc. Best. Hopefully we get an answer over the summer. I have trouble understanding the forecast from noaa at 11 pm that night when the bust was known. Philly still was going 18 inches for me on updates. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Pamela Posted April 19, 2015 Share Posted April 19, 2015 Just wondering if there has been an official review from noaa leadership. Anyone step down at Philly or nyc offices etc. Best. If someone were to "step down" every time a forecast did not work out, there would be no one on the job. Errant forecasts are a part of life because predicting the precise movements of large bodies of air is a very difficult task...no forecaster is going to intentionally issue an incorrect forecast...they want to be correct more than anyone...but sometimes it simply does not go their way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Juliancolton Posted April 20, 2015 Share Posted April 20, 2015 BlizzghaziGate Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rjay Posted April 20, 2015 Share Posted April 20, 2015 BlizzghaziGate Maybe the Senate will put together a committee to get to the bottom of this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nzucker Posted April 20, 2015 Share Posted April 20, 2015 Hopefully we get an answer over the summer. I have trouble understanding the forecast from noaa at 11 pm that night when the bust was known. Philly still was going 18 inches for me on updates. This guy is like a broken record in here. OK they made a mistake. It's snow, not something we should fire the whole crew for. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dmillz25 Posted April 20, 2015 Share Posted April 20, 2015 It happens its over with its been 4 months already. Lets enjoy the summer and hopefully next winter we get hit hard equally Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ag3 Posted April 20, 2015 Share Posted April 20, 2015 Big deal. NYCs boroughs saw close to or over a foot of snow. Not even a top 5 bust in the last 30 years. People are overreacting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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