WxChallenge 2016-2017

[H2Otown_WX]

71/38/6

[nje310]

18 hours ago, Chrisrotary12 said:

I got clarification from NWS Reno via Twitter.  Need 3 consecutive mins for a temperature to qualify as a low.

But that criteria doesn't apply for a high temperature?  I'm just curious because the same page presented above from NWS with the KRNO observations shows a high of 74 yesterday (as also stated on the METARs and NWS climate report), but not even one 5-minute temperature reading above 73.  So does that three consecutive criteria only apply to lows and not highs?

 

[so_whats_happening]

2 hours ago, nje310 said:

But that criteria doesn't apply for a high temperature?  I'm just curious because the same page presented above from NWS with the KRNO observations shows a high of 74 yesterday (as also stated on the METARs and NWS climate report), but not even one 5-minute temperature reading above 73.  So does that three consecutive criteria only apply to lows and not highs?

 

No it works for both but what I think might have happened was a 3 consecutive period within two 5 min blocks. One had one reading at 74 but finished with overall being 73 since the average was toward 73. While the other 5 min block followed with two more consecutive readings of 74 but again failed to go above the required three for the hour to register at 74.

 

It honestly just all seems weird that at those 5 min marks it registered with one thing but was another but hey who knows.

[Mallow]

On 11/9/2016 at 11:36 AM, Chrisrotary12 said:

72/38/7/0  for day 1.....I'm confused.   The climo report says that 38 was the low at 6:08 am.  But when you look at the http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/mesowest/getobext.php?wfo=rev&sid=KRNO&num=72&raw=0 from the NWS webpage the temperature reading at 6:00 am and 6:05 am was 37.  

Nope, it wasn't just that we need 3-minutes at a given temperature, as that's also required for the observation. The reason is that the non-hourly observations (the hourly ones are the ones at XX:55 in Reno) are rounded to the nearest full degree celsius. So 38F, which is 3.3ºC, rounds to 3ºC on the five-minute observations, which when displayed in fahrenheit, looks like 37.4ºF, and some sites will round that back down to 37ºF. That's why you never see 38s, 40s, 42s, etc on the five-minute observations.

You cannot just assume that because a five-minutely observation shows 37ºF that it was actually 37ºF at that time. In fact, if it was 39ºF for most of the observations around it, but one (non-hourly) observation shows "37ºF", it's almost certainly actually 38ºF (it doesn't often cool 2ºF for five minutes only to warm back up 2ºF in the next observation). The hourly observations (XX:55 in Reno) don't suffer from this, because they are given to the nearest degree fahrenheit (converted from the nearest degree fahrenheit to the nearest TENTH of a degree celsius).

[Chrisrotary12]

 

1 hour ago, Mallow said:

Nope, it wasn't just that we need 3-minutes at a given temperature, as that's also required for the observation. The reason is that the non-hourly observations (the hourly ones are the ones at XX:55 in Reno) are rounded to the nearest full degree celsius. So 38F, which is 3.3ºC, rounds to 3ºC on the five-minute observations, which when displayed in fahrenheit, looks like 37.4ºF, and some sites will round that back down to 37ºF. That's why you never see 38s, 40s, 42s, etc on the five-minute observations.

You cannot just assume that because a five-minutely observation shows 37ºF that it was actually 37ºF at that time. In fact, if it was 39ºF for most of the observations around it, but one (non-hourly) observation shows "37ºF", it's almost certainly actually 38ºF (it doesn't often cool 2ºF for five minutes only to warm back up 2ºF in the next observation). The hourly observations (XX:55 in Reno) don't suffer from this, because they are given to the nearest degree fahrenheit (converted from the nearest degree fahrenheit to the nearest TENTH of a degree celsius).

I'm honestly surprised this hasn't been figured out by now, in city 4. Has it never seemed strange to you that the five minute observations almost always change by exactly 2ºF, and that some numbers never show up on the five minute observations?

Really dude?  Has it never seemed strange to you that some of us don't have 20 hours a day to stare at and study 5 minute observations or the intricacies of the ASOS system and its rounding function.  

[Mallow]

1 hour ago, Chrisrotary12 said:

 

Really dude?  Has it never seemed strange to you that some of us don't have 20 hours a day to stare at and study 5 minute observations or the intricacies of the ASOS system and its rounding function.  

Sorry, that came across much worse than I intended. I did not mean it to be condescending, but I see that it was. I apologize. I have deleted that part.

For me, it was pretty obvious (and I obviously don't spend that much time looking at the observations), but I can see how it could be missed.

[nje310]

6 hours ago, Mallow said:

Nope, it wasn't just that we need 3-minutes at a given temperature, as that's also required for the observation. The reason is that the non-hourly observations (the hourly ones are the ones at XX:55 in Reno) are rounded to the nearest full degree celsius. So 38F, which is 3.3ºC, rounds to 3ºC on the five-minute observations, which when displayed in fahrenheit, looks like 37.4ºF, and some sites will round that back down to 37ºF. That's why you never see 38s, 40s, 42s, etc on the five-minute observations.

You cannot just assume that because a five-minutely observation shows 37ºF that it was actually 37ºF at that time. In fact, if it was 39ºF for most of the observations around it, but one (non-hourly) observation shows "37ºF", it's almost certainly actually 38ºF (it doesn't often cool 2ºF for five minutes only to warm back up 2ºF in the next observation). The hourly observations (XX:55 in Reno) don't suffer from this, because they are given to the nearest degree fahrenheit (converted from the nearest degree fahrenheit to the nearest TENTH of a degree celsius).

 

Thanks Michael.  I'm so busy right now that I haven't had time to even pay attention to that, nor known that they now show observations every five minutes until I saw the post a couple days ago with the initial question about the lows.  So I hadn't even thought about it.  This makes perfect sense, although it seems kind of strange to round in Celsius, convert to Fahrenheit, and then round again (why wouldn't they convert before any rounding?) - but that's a different issue!

 

 

[H2Otown_WX]

70/38/15

[Mallow]

12 hours ago, nje310 said:

 

Thanks Michael.  I'm so busy right now that I haven't had time to even pay attention to that, nor known that they now show observations every five minutes until I saw the post a couple days ago with the initial question about the lows.  So I hadn't even thought about it.  This makes perfect sense, although it seems kind of strange to round in Celsius, convert to Fahrenheit, and then round again (why wouldn't they convert before any rounding?) - but that's a different issue!

 

 

Yeah, it's pretty odd the way they do it. That being said, the last conversion and rounding step (from Celsius to Fahrenheit) is actually done by whichever site you're using to look at observations. The METAR report itself (the actual observation) is just in full degrees Celsius.

[H2Otown_WX]

66/37/22

[so_whats_happening]

68/37/24

Went a little higher with the high and the cold front possibly not coming through until after 00z time frame tomorrow. Windy though thats for sure I feel I may have gone too high with winds but am unsure how strong winds get out there in events like this.

[wi_fl_wx]

70/35/26/0

Decided to take a few calculated risks with some actual weather finally showing up. 

[WxBlue]

68/36/25/0

Decided to go for it tomorrow. It's blowing pretty hard at BL and I can see some of that reaching the ground.

[wi_fl_wx]

17 hours ago, wi_fl_wx said:

70/35/26/0

Decided to take a few calculated risks with some actual weather finally showing up. 

Well that was easy. Already have my 70 at 10 AM. 

[so_whats_happening]

Wow u know I was going to go with 71 but thought that would have been pushing it.

[LoveSN+]

Gees the temp has rocketed. Look at that dew point as well! Really wish I went higher on the winds.

[Mallow]

Pretty happy with my 69/36/26 right now, but wishing I had gone higher on the high. Saw a couple days in previous Novembers that I thought might be good analogs, and seriously considered going into the 70s.

[nje310]

3 hours ago, Mallow said:

Pretty happy with my 69/36/26 right now, but wishing I had gone higher on the high. Saw a couple days in previous Novembers that I thought might be good analogs, and seriously considered going into the 70s.

 

Same here.  I went 69/37/26 and debated at the last minute going 70-71, low of 36, and winds of 30.  But didn't want to take too much of a risk and fall hard if it didn't verify.  Winds have been up to 31 knots so far if I'm reading the observations correctly.

 

[Mallow]

54/28/20/0 for tomorrow. I could see the (06z) high and wind being significantly higher than that, though.

[so_whats_happening]

2 hours ago, nje310 said:

 

Same here.  I went 69/37/26 and debated at the last minute going 70-71, low of 36, and winds of 30.  But didn't want to take too much of a risk and fall hard if it didn't verify.  Winds have been up to 31 knots so far if I'm reading the observations correctly.

 

Gust maybe looks like it will end up around 26-27kt pretty crazy.

Went 53/31/17  might bust hard on possibly wind and high. Wind looked to go until about 8z with at least 15kt showing up. Low will come tomorrow night at 6z and the high might be tonight at 6z.

Edit: just saw the 36mph which is about 31kt

[wi_fl_wx]

48/28/16/0

This was a tough forecast, I may regret going with the colder high but I think the temp will drop despite the clouds and diminishing wind. 

[OHweather]

51/26/14

didnt see how how the winds got today, probably will be too low for tomorrow 

[H2Otown_WX]

52/30/20

Very difficult forecast with bookend high and low. I had 49 but I just couldn't see how it gets that low with the wind direction/speed forecast. Hoping the winds can stay up through 06z to achieve 20 kts and could certainly see how they could be higher.

[nje310]

1 hour ago, so_whats_happening said:

Gust maybe looks like it will end up around 26-27kt pretty crazy.

Went 53/31/17  might bust hard on possibly wind and high. Wind looked to go until about 8z with at least 15kt showing up. Low will come tomorrow night at 6z and the high might be tonight at 6z.

Edit: just saw the 36mph which is about 31kt

 

Yea, I had been looking at the 36mph (31 knot) winds reported at 12:40pm.  But the afternoon climate report says 29mph (25 knots).  So I'm confused.

51/33/22/0.00 for tomorrow.  I noticed the winds just decreased very rapidly, but then shifted as the cold front passed and are now back up to 14 knots from the NW, so I'm still hopeful they pick up again behind the front as the pressure gradient remains strong tonight across the region.

 

 

[AppsRunner]

54 for the high it looks like. 

[so_whats_happening]

there it is lol was hoping for slightly cooler but ill take it now for just the winds to see what they do

[Mallow]

The 25kts in the climo must be an error. There were two hourly winds at 25kts, but many, many higher winds between observations. The "highest wind speed" value is supposed to be the highest sustained wind speed at any period, so the 31kts at 12:40PM should be completely valid (and higher values may have even occurred between five-minute observations). I have sent the KRNO office an email, hoping to get it fixed.

[nje310]

17 minutes ago, Mallow said:

The 25kts in the climo must be an error. There were two hourly winds at 25kts, but many, many higher winds between observations. The "highest wind speed" value is supposed to be the highest sustained wind speed at any period, so the 31kts at 12:40PM should be completely valid (and higher values may have even occurred between five-minute observations). I have sent the KRNO office an email, hoping to get it fixed.

That's exactly what I was thinking.  Let us know what you hear; I'm sure more than just myself will be fairly curious.

 

 

[Mallow]

2 hours ago, nje310 said:

That's exactly what I was thinking.  Let us know what you hear; I'm sure more than just myself will be fairly curious.

 

 

I also had contacted the WxChallenge manager, and he got back to me. Apparently, he contacted the Reno NWS and they do not want to change their 25kt value. So we are stuck with the 25kts unless the NWS changes their mind.

[nje310]

6 minutes ago, Mallow said:

I also had contacted the WxChallenge manager, and he got back to me. Apparently, he contacted the Reno NWS and they do not want to change their 25kt value. So we are stuck with the 25kts unless the NWS changes their mind.

 

That's sad because I went higher.   Not much higher, 26 knots, but it would at least allow me to gain a point on most people...