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nj2va

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Everything is still trending stronger/northwester.. maybe the new model sweetspots is like d5............ unless it doesn't show the storm until day 3. Day 3 is not a good day for us either way.

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For me, this one is a case of data ingestion. Our big three, Euro, GFS, and NAM all lost this for us at exactly the same time. All three had looked good at 12z yesterday. At 0z last night they all basically said no. And they haven't wavered since. It would be neat to know what the tell tale piece of info it was that sent them down a different path.

Fortunate they all said no at the same time. Pretty cut and dry.

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Fair enough Ian. My confidence was pretty high but the lead time still scared me. I kept thinking "please get inside of 72 with no sig changes...please". Ensembles never lost the nw cluster so it lurked but agree that seeing the 12z gfs/euro yesterday so close made it seem like a near lock. And here we are...

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Everything is still trending stronger/northwester.. maybe the new model sweetspots is like d5............ unless it doesn't show the storm until day 3. Day 3 is not a good day for us either way.

This is the winter to ignore models until just before showtime. We had some good discussions. Good learning experience from you all.

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eh.. it was more than one model suite that showed it.. plus we knew the setup was better than it has been even if flawed.  we do sometimes still collectively ignore the bad signs. it surely wasn't a lock. not the best performance of models from range.. and all early calls are in trouble it seems. so.. not a short term bust but not sure it's clear it's just another model blip we should have ignored.

It was more than one model suite where some of the models showed a direct hit, but the ones before 12Z yesterday all had at least a couple of models showing the mix-line or that we were on the northern fringe or that it was going to be light snows all around. I agree with you that it wasn't just another model blip. What I don't think works for us is to be excited in a winter like this one at a 72-hr lead time.

 

2/13/07 was a great example of the quite extreme ups and downs we can go through from 72-hrs until verification. 12"+ snowstorm to disaster to some wintry mix changing to rain to wintry mix verifying and then ice storm warning issued to unforeseen sleet-pummeling. 

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Fair enough Ian. My confidence was pretty high but the lead time still scared me. I kept thinking "please get inside of 72 with no sig changes...please". Ensembles never lost the nw cluster so it lurked but agree that seeing the 12z gfs/euro yesterday so close made it seem like a near lock. And here we are...

It was really the only 'perfect' agreement we saw from those sets of guidance.. though the signs were there for a while. I never am a huge fan of a 'great' setup that's falling into place as the storm comes together. They always seem to mess themselves up somewhere.

 

I think partly given the blocking narrative many of us expected to see the original 'cutter' turn into what it did.. then when it did we bought it hard. Remember pointing out several times that the models could all be showing the same wrong thing but I was still excited too. The biggest problem for a snow forecaster is the joy of snow.

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To the point I made earlier, the algorithms and mathematics that these models run on doesn't change from run to run. For a united shift as we saw last night, it had to have been updated data. As to Bobs point about a clustering of ens mems being nw, there must have been one player in this storm that is so vital that just a small change ion its parameters made all the difference. We got the "change" we didn't want. I'm curious what that might have been. Was it the ns energy? Was it poorly sampled early because it was over the pacific? Just curious.

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eh.. it was more than one model suite that showed it.. plus we knew the setup was better than it has been even if flawed.  we do sometimes still collectively ignore the bad signs. it surely wasn't a lock. not the best performance of models from range.. and all early calls are in trouble it seems. so.. not a short term bust but not sure it's clear it's just another model blip we should have ignored.

 

Exactly. The one thing I have learned is that for THIS winter outside 72 hours on the models mean absolutely dick. The midrange modeling has been atrocious. And I dont see why that wouldnt continue with the northern dominated pattern we are in.

 

On a side note I wanna apologize for my posts tonight. The frustration of this hobby finally broke me down this year. We have 5 or 6 legitimate weeks left. But I will not care about anything any model shows outside of 72 hours. Period.

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Exactly. The one thing I have learned is that for THIS winter outside 72 hours on the models mean absolutely dick. The midrange modeling has been atrocious. And I dont see why that wouldnt continue with the northern dominated pattern we are in.

On a side note I wanna apologize for my posts tonight. The frustration of this hobby finally broke me down this year. We have 5 or 6 legitimate weeks left. But I will not care about anything any model shows outside of 72 hours. Period.

It's passion and I appreciate it. Man I'm pissed off myself. This winter is just pure suck!! I'd rather have 60 degrees and rain and complain that it was a winter without cold air as opposed to these tease jobs every week and wasted cold air.

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It's passion and I appreciate it. Man I'm pissed off myself. This winter is just pure suck!! I'd rather have 60 degrees and rain and complain that it was a winter without cold air as opposed to these tease jobs every week and wasted cold air.

A lot of the very level headed posters have been more frustrated than usual for the facts you mentioned above. Plenty cold and plenty storms. So close. Very disappointing.

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Exactly. The one thing I have learned is that for THIS winter outside 72 hours on the models mean absolutely dick. The midrange modeling has been atrocious. And I dont see why that wouldnt continue with the northern dominated pattern we are in.

 

On a side note I wanna apologize for my posts tonight. The frustration of this hobby finally broke me down this year. We have 5 or 6 legitimate weeks left. But I will not care about anything any model shows outside of 72 hours. Period.

 

it's fine to care about what a model shows outside of 72 hours, but it's premature to assume the models are going to stop trending in either direction just because we're in the bullseye for run or two.  i get interested when i see potential, but i try not to let it consume too much of my time/brainspace until we get closer to the actual event.

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Fair enough Ian. My confidence was pretty high but the lead time still scared me. I kept thinking "please get inside of 72 with no sig changes...please". Ensembles never lost the nw cluster so it lurked but agree that seeing the 12z gfs/euro yesterday so close made it seem like a near lock. And here we are...

You've been completely right about the short-range nature of forecasting given the lack of Atlantic blocking. Even in last season's prolific winter, we had to get within 36-hrs on several of the bigger storms to feel confident. January 2014 was not an easy month for model-watching and nailing down the snows. 

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I used the word "ignore" models prior to 72. That is not really a good word. I benefited from reading the analysis. That's why the board exists. But, yeah, you just can't buy into a solution until the very end. It's hard not to get sucked in because we only have Feb left, as some have mentioned. Frustrating for sure.

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It was more than one model suite where some of the models showed a direct hit, but the ones before 12Z yesterday all had at least a couple of models showing the mix-line or that we were on the northern fringe or that it was going to be light snows all around. I agree with you that it wasn't just another model blip. What I don't think works for us is to be excited in a winter like this one at a 72-hr lead time.

 

2/13/07 was a great example of the quite extreme ups and downs we can go through from 72-hrs until verification. 12"+ snowstorm to disaster to some wintry mix changing to rain to wintry mix verifying and then ice storm warning issued to unforeseen sleet-pummeling. 

Yes.. we were too far out to feel as giddy as we did collectively. It's contagious though. I think after chasing indices the idea of a -NAO alone turned up the expectation game even if maybe it shouldn't have. 

 

The block is still more east based than we'd really drool over plus it's transient in nature. The 50/50 feature on some of the good runs did certainly shift in the bad runs.. as soon as it flattened back out to the north the low coming at us went back to amplifying. I don't know if that's the cause though.. probably a number of things.

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this is a sick, sick hobby..

And I'm a real life Meteorologist lol. Look at models all day in AWIPS then come home and look at models and hang out with you guys. Been an absolute weather fanatic since I was a youngster. You have to be a nut to survive all the physics and calculus lol

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