Fall+Banter

[moneypitmike]

28 minutes ago, Damage In Tolland said:

Gusty winds today knocked this tree down a few houses down from me earlier this AM

 

 

That's not the CT I grew up in.  Our trees were strong and we never whined about acorns.

 

55*

[Damage In Tolland]

3 minutes ago, moneypitmike said:

 

That's not the CT I grew up in.  Our trees were strong and we never whined about acorns.

 

55*

Glad we didn't live there

[dendrite]

I'm guessing that tree didn't need much wind to fall.

[Baroclinic Zone]

3 minutes ago, dendrite said:

I'm guessing that tree didn't need much wind to fall.

Probably rotted.

[ORH_wxman]

Definitely looks kind of rotten.

[forkyfork]

the dying leaves give it away

[Damage In Tolland]

Most birch are very Drought stressed this year locally. That's the cause. Winds were only 30mph

[powderfreak]

31 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

Definitely looks kind of rotten.

Yeah that's definitely rotten in the trunk.  Drought stress is one thing but probably not the main cause as they'd be falling all over SNE every time the wind blew.  There was a fungus or insects or something rotting the inside.

That tree has probably had that fall in the making for few couple years now.

[CoastalWx]

Nice OE sheet drizzle/rain. Too bad it's not 3 months from now. Ray's south shore CJ.

[TauntonBlizzard2013]

Seasons in seasons.

55 and mist 

[forkyfork]

another rain event bites the dust

[powderfreak]

5 minutes ago, TauntonBlizzard2013 said:

Seasons in seasons.

55 and mist 

70F here after a low of 42F and brochure weather with just puffy Cu floating through the mountains.  

Mother Nature knows what I want, haha.

[OceanStWx]

5 hours ago, dendrite said:

I don't know shiat about the MSY ASOS, but I agree with Scott. Heck, CON had a gravel pit under their ASOS this summer and although they were 1-2F warm on max temps their mins were fine. The dirt sfc loses heat quickly. That's how we radiationally cool and it always seems like wet snow is first to accumulate on dirt and mulch.

I might be more inclined to buy the road theory if it were a slight increase in overnight lows above 80, but this record is a fourfold increase. Something larger is going on there.

If the road was in around April, you would expect this to show it. So something else is going on to cause the shift. Maybe all the construction at the airport, as the WaPo commenters suggest. I do like that a few FAA contract observers chuck the NWS under the bus. I'm not sure what they would like LIX to do if all the equipment if working properly. 

[snowman21]

5 hours ago, Ginx snewx said:

readthe other article, cool stuff, love ASOS next to jet runways, great way to get a mess 

Why does it create a mess? The purpose of ASOS is to give you continuous weather reports as close as possible to the runway, especially the primary touchdown zone, and I'd say it does a good job at that. Some of the comments on that article are kind of silly though.

[ORH_wxman]

4 minutes ago, OceanStWx said:

I might be more inclined to buy the road theory if it were a slight increase in overnight lows above 80, but this record is a fourfold increase. Something larger is going on there.

If the road was in around April, you would expect this to show it. So something else is going on to cause the shift. Maybe all the construction at the airport, as the WaPo commenters suggest. I do like that a few FAA contract observers chuck the NWS under the bus. I'm not sure what they would like LIX to do if all the equipment if working properly. 

 

Maybe your favorite landscaping company took a vacation to Bourbon Street this summer.

[OceanStWx]

The all-hands conference call today continues down the path that ASOS started. That was put in to replace human observers, and it sounds like the process of automation will continue for the next several years.

Lots of talk of centralized forecasts, and load shedding warnings and "met watch" to national centers.  Way too much talk that sounds like getting out of the forecast business and into the messaging business. But I find it hard to own the forecast/message when I'm not actually the one making the forecast.

[Ginx snewx]

34 minutes ago, snowman21 said:

Why does it create a mess? The purpose of ASOS is to give you continuous weather reports as close as possible to the runway, especially the primary touchdown zone, and I'd say it does a good job at that. Some of the comments on that article are kind of silly though.

Yet quoted as climate data when we know like BTV surounding conditions changed

[ORH_wxman]

27 minutes ago, OceanStWx said:

The all-hands conference call today continues down the path that ASOS started. That was put in to replace human observers, and it sounds like the process of automation will continue for the next several years.

Lots of talk of centralized forecasts, and load shedding warnings and "met watch" to national centers.  Way too much talk that sounds like getting out of the forecast business and into the messaging business. But I find it hard to own the forecast/message when I'm not actually the one making the forecast.

 

I find it pretty disconcerting to trust a centralized office to make accurate forecasts for a smaller region with a ton of microclimates. That'll be classic when they lump in ORH with a place like CEF during a potential CAD event with icing....and I'm sure they'll nail the localized ocean enhancement zones and do great with upslope.

[OceanStWx]

1 minute ago, ORH_wxman said:

 

I find it pretty disconcerting to trust a centralized office to make accurate forecasts for a smaller region with a ton of microclimates. That'll be classic when they lump in ORH with a place like CEF during a potential CAD event with icing....and I'm sure they'll nail the localized ocean enhancement zones and do great with upslope.

What I worry about is that they say we'll be able to add value back to the centralized forecast before it is published, but we know how that game works. We end up getting too busy, and it looks "good enough." If our primary job isn't the forecast, then it will take a back seat to what is our primary job.

I mean when do we all start really gearing up for a winter storm? 4 maybe 5 days out. We know that is going to be produced by WPC soon. In fact all Central Region offices will start with WPC this year in the long term to test the idea. Well if I'm getting calls from the state level asking about an impending winter storm, I can tell you it's not starting on day 1 or 2, it's starting days 4 and 5. I know I'll be plugged in enough for a briefing, but will the folks getting ready to retire from the NWS (roughly 40% in the next 5 years) be that willing to stay in the loop?

[Panes and Portlets]

41 minutes ago, OceanStWx said:

The all-hands conference call today continues down the path that ASOS started. That was put in to replace human observers, and it sounds like the process of automation will continue for the next several years.

Lots of talk of centralized forecasts, and load shedding warnings and "met watch" to national centers.  Way too much talk that sounds like getting out of the forecast business and into the messaging business. But I find it hard to own the forecast/message when I'm not actually the one making the forecast.

Ask the USAF how well their HUB/wx flight concept works in both verification of products and retention of personnel.

[OceanStWx]

3 minutes ago, Panes and Portlets said:

Ask the USAF how well their HUB/wx flight concept works in both verification of products and retention of personnel.

That was brought up by a few vets here, in addition the the Environment Canada centralization.

[ORH_wxman]

20 minutes ago, OceanStWx said:

What I worry about is that they say we'll be able to add value back to the centralized forecast before it is published, but we know how that game works. We end up getting too busy, and it looks "good enough." If our primary job isn't the forecast, then it will take a back seat to what is our primary job.

I mean when do we all start really gearing up for a winter storm? 4 maybe 5 days out. We know that is going to be produced by WPC soon. In fact all Central Region offices will start with WPC this year in the long term to test the idea. Well if I'm getting calls from the state level asking about an impending winter storm, I can tell you it's not starting on day 1 or 2, it's starting days 4 and 5. I know I'll be plugged in enough for a briefing, but will the folks getting ready to retire from the NWS (roughly 40% in the next 5 years) be that willing to stay in the loop?

 

And there's probably a lot more who aren't retiring soon that won't really give a crap about a storm 4 days out.

 

I think centralization of forecasting will perform the worst when the stakes are the highest...the bureaucrats will probably all high-five eachother on verification scores that rack up great stats when we have high pressure and 77F highs for days on end with POPs near zero, but when it counts during complex winter wx events or events where mesoscale forecasting matters, I can't see them performing very well.  

[OceanStWx]

Just now, ORH_wxman said:

And there's probably a lot more who aren't retiring soon that won't really give a crap about a storm 4 days out.

 

I think centralization of forecasting will perform the worst when the stakes are the highest...the bureaucrats will probably all high-five eachother on verification scores that rack up great stats when we have high pressure and 77F highs for days on end with POPs near zero, but when it counts during complex winter wx events or events where mesoscale forecasting matters, I can't see them performing very well.  

That's the rub. All the focus is on the fact that we're generally not busy on good weather days, but very little focus is on what happens when it's not a nice day. Instead the assumption is we've nailed the forecast already, and we need to focus on our communication with decision makers. Drop the ball in a few events because you dry humped the GFS (which by the way could get political if the national center doesn't use the GFS as much as people think they should for instance), and those decision makers will go elsewhere for forecast information. Then what do we do?

Something does need to change, but I don't think this is the change we need. We could focus on training and model interpretation, but instead we're turning towards automation because the output looks realistic.

[CoastalWx]

Preaching to the choir Chris. Luckily I've made some good cases about human model interpolation in high leverage situations.

[powderfreak]

54 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

 

I find it pretty disconcerting to trust a centralized office to make accurate forecasts for a smaller region with a ton of microclimates. That'll be classic when they lump in ORH with a place like CEF during a potential CAD event with icing....and I'm sure they'll nail the localized ocean enhancement zones and do great with upslope.

Yeah I feel like BTV's entire CWA is vastly different micro-climates (even just low temps when 12z temps are 70F at BTV, 52F at MVL, and 46F at SLK in July) that no regional office will come close to figuring out.  Heck it's only been in the past decade or so that upslope snow has been much better identified and forecast.  

I really do fear a Weather Channel type forecast that doesn't do the microclimates any justice....like "50% chance of snow showers" (same broadbrush POPS from BTV to MPV) when we all know it's going to be 6-12" of upslope.  

Speaking of which, since The Weather Channel did away with using the NOAA zones, there can be some hilarious differences in local forecasts.  TWC still relays the NWS headlines, but with upslope snows the headline rarely matches TWC forecast.  You'll see like "Winter Storm Warning Today and Tonight" followed by TWC forecast of "Today: Chance of snow showers.  Little to know accumulation."  Then "Tonight: Snow showers likely.  Accumulation near one inch."

Meanwhile the NWS forecast actually matches the headline with like "Today: Occasional snow showers. 2-4 inches of accumulation."  "Tonight: Snow.  Snow may be heavy at times.  4-8 inches of additional accumulation."

The difference there is a local office that recognizes the set-up for upslope snow, vs. a low resolution global model forecast that isn't resolving the mesoscale precip.  Then, the 10,000 people sitting in a hotel rooms watching TWC forecast are very confused as to why the locals are excited, and why people are saying a snowstorm is coming but the Weather Channel and Accuweather forecasts aren't saying anything about it.

[CoastalWx]

53.5 and drizzle.

[ORH_wxman]

9 minutes ago, CoastalWx said:

Preaching to the choir Chris. Luckily I've made some good cases about human model interpolation in high leverage situations.

I mean, I basically made a living off of out-forecasting other outlets for specific towns. There's a reason they paid for it. It's worth it to them even if it only really pays dividends once or twice per winter.  

 

That was enough. A bad miss was very costly for these guys. Nailing an elevation wet snow bomb in February 2010 while everyone else was talking about 1-3" of slush probably saved these guys 50-80k in budget. 

It won't take too many misses on generic centralized forecasts (or inaccurate forecasts) to really cause a big backlash. 

[OceanStWx]

Case in point with creating safety net grids. 19z PoP vs. 19z Wx today.

We have a consensus short term blend of hi-res model guidance. Clearly something was up with a hi-res model today and it dumped 90% in a small area. Well when you accept guidance as good enough you get discrepancies like this.

 

[OceanStWx]

3 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

I mean, I basically made a living off of out-forecasting other outlets for specific towns. There's a reason they paid for it. It's worth it to them even if it only really pays dividends once or twice per winter.  

 

That was enough. A bad miss was very costly for these guys. Nailing an elevation wet snow bomb in February 2010 while everyone else was talking about 1-3" of slush probably saved these guys 50-80k in budget. 

It won't take too many misses on generic centralized forecasts (or inaccurate forecasts) to really cause a big backlash. 

We're being awfully naive if we think that decision makers aren't checking multiple sources, and that they won't hesitate to use another source if they think that it's better (even if it's only perceived and not actually true).

The NWS really could put themselves out of business if they expect the messaging of weather to continue to keep the lights on if we're not keeping up with the best forecasts too.

[CoastalWx]

20 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

I mean, I basically made a living off of out-forecasting other outlets for specific towns. There's a reason they paid for it. It's worth it to them even if it only really pays dividends once or twice per winter.  

 

That was enough. A bad miss was very costly for these guys. Nailing an elevation wet snow bomb in February 2010 while everyone else was talking about 1-3" of slush probably saved these guys 50-80k in budget. 

It won't take too many misses on generic centralized forecasts (or inaccurate forecasts) to really cause a big backlash. 

It's the old cost-benefit model in the corporate world. It also comes down to how good mets are. You aren't good to make a good case if your staff is blowing it. 

As you said, the real money is nailing the high impact events. In a world of free weather data....you better be putting out a good product. I take dam good pride in "beating" models. Case in point our mid level magicians events such as recently on 3/21/16 and obviously 2/15/15