Met Winter 2016-17 Banter

[CPcantmeasuresnow]

NOAA just announced if we have one more meteorological winter like the one that just ended which preceded the second warmest meteorological winter ever last year, they will be eliminating December and February from meteorological winter.

The new periods will be:
Meteorological summer will still be June through August.
Meteorological fall will now be September through December.
Meteorological winter will just be the month of January.
Meteorological Spring will be February through May.

Just in case anyone takes this serious JK, but if trends continue maybe they should.

[bluewave]

32 minutes ago, Paragon said:

That's surprising then, usually a warm signal from the AMO signifies more atlantic side blocking? Maybe there is a lag.

It's getting tougher to compare our current climate to what happened in the past.

Remarkable how warm the N Atlantic is despite the NAO/AO being so positive this winter. Getting hard to compare to the past! #climatechangepic.twitter.com/Grv0lnp7ts

5:51 AM - 17 Feb 2017

[Paragon]

48 minutes ago, CPcantmeasuresnow said:

NOAA just announced if we have one more meteorological winter like the one that just ended which preceded the second warmest meteorological winter ever last year, they will be eliminating December and February from meteorological winter.

The new periods will be:
Meteorological summer will still be June through August.
Meteorological fall will now be September through December.
Meteorological winter will just be the month of January.
Meteorological Spring will be February through May.

Just in case anyone takes this serious JK, but if trends continue maybe they should.

They probably should do it anyway.  Although if winter just means the three coldest/coolest months, then it won't matter how warm they get as long as the other 9 months are warmer lol.

[Paragon]

26 minutes ago, bluewave said:

It's getting tougher to compare our current climate to what happened in the past.

Remarkable how warm the N Atlantic is despite the NAO/AO being so positive this winter. Getting hard to compare to the past! #climatechangepic.twitter.com/Grv0lnp7ts

5:51 AM - 17 Feb 2017

All our correlations are going to be off lol.  Well, they already are, just look at the enormity of the temperature anomalies associated with the indices.

 

[Dan76]

LOL time sensitive    http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lon=-155.6032423706055&lat=19.477651578725727#.WLc9Wr4nvII

[Paragon]

21 minutes ago, Dan76 said:

LOL time sensitive    http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lon=-155.6032423706055&lat=19.477651578725727#.WLc9Wr4nvII

I have this location programmed into Yowindow as PHSF (Mauna Loa).  Funny they have both a Blizzard Warning and a Flash Flood Warning there.

Current conditions at

Bradshaw Army Air Field / Hawaii (PHSF)

Lat: 19.78°NLon: 155.55°WElev: 6191ft.

Mostly Cloudy

59°F

15°C

Humidity	55%
Wind Speed	W 6 mph
Barometer	30.21 in (1012.0 mb)
Dewpoint	43°F (6°C)
Visibility	10.00 mi
Last update	1 Mar 10:56 am HST

More Information:

Local Forecast OfficeMore Local Wx3 Day HistoryMobile WeatherHourly Weather Forecast

Extended Forecast for

18 Miles E Honaunau-Napoopoo HI

 

Click here for hazard details and duration

Flash Flood Watch

Blizzard Warning

•  

  NOW: Multiple
  hazards in effect

  

  Click HERE for Details

• Today
   

  

  Heavy Snow
  and Damaging
  Winds

  High: 29 °F

• Tonight
   

  

  Heavy Snow
  and Damaging
  Winds

  Low: 28 °F

• Thursday
   

  

  Snow Showers
  Likely and
  Damaging
  Winds

  High: 31 °F

• Thursday
  Night

  

  Scattered
  Snow Showers
  and Windy

  Low: 30 °F

• Friday
   

  

  Scattered
  Snow Showers
  and Windy

  High: 39 °F

• Friday
  Night

  

  Partly Cloudy
  and Windy

  Low: 32 °F

• Saturday
   

  

  Mostly Sunny
  and Windy

  High: 39 °F

• Saturday
  Night

  

  Partly Cloudy
  and Breezy

  Low: 34 °F

Detailed Forecast

Today

Frequent snow showers. The snow could be heavy at times. Some thunder is also possible. High near 29. Strong and damaging winds, with a southwest wind around 55 mph, with gusts as high as 80 mph. Chance of precipitation is 90%. Total daytime snow accumulation of 3 to 5 inches possible.

Tonight

Occasional snow showers. The snow could be heavy at times. Some thunder is also possible. Low around 28. Strong and damaging winds, with a southwest wind around 50 mph, with gusts as high as 65 mph. Chance of precipitation is 90%. New snow accumulation of 3 to 5 inches possible.

Thursday

Snow showers likely. Mostly sunny, with a high near 31. Strong and damaging winds, with a west southwest wind around 50 mph, with gusts as high as 65 mph. Chance of precipitation is 60%. New snow accumulation of around an inch possible.

Thursday Night

Scattered snow showers. Partly cloudy, with a low around 30. Windy, with a west southwest wind around 25 mph, with gusts as high as 36 mph. Chance of precipitation is 40%.

Friday

Scattered snow showers. Mostly sunny, with a high near 39. Windy, with a west southwest wind around 26 mph, with gusts as high as 38 mph. Chance of precipitation is 30%.

Friday Night

Partly cloudy, with a low around 32. Windy, with a west southwest wind around 25 mph, with gusts as high as 36 mph.

Saturday

Mostly sunny, with a high near 39. Windy, with a west wind around 25 mph, with gusts as high as 36 mph.

Saturday Night

Partly cloudy, with a low around 34. Breezy, with a west southwest wind around 21 mph, with gusts as high as 29 mph.

Sunday

Isolated snow showers. Mostly sunny, with a high near 39. Windy, with a west southwest wind 21 to 25 mph, with gusts as high as 36 mph. Chance of precipitation is 20%.

Sunday Night

Isolated snow showers. Partly cloudy, with a low around 33. Windy, with a west southwest wind around 26 mph, with gusts as high as 38 mph. Chance of precipitation is 20%.

Monday

Isolated snow showers. Mostly sunny, with a high near 40. Windy, with a southwest wind 25 to 30 mph, with gusts as high as 44 mph. Chance of precipitation is 20%.

Monday Night

Isolated snow showers. Partly cloudy, with a low around 30. Strong and damaging winds, with a south southwest wind around 43 mph, with gusts as high as 65 mph. Chance of precipitation is 20%.

Tuesday

Isolated snow showers. Partly sunny, with a high near 40. Strong and damaging winds, with a south southwest wind around 44 mph, with gusts as high as 65 mph. Chance of precipitation is 20%.

[Paragon]

[psuhoffman]

I posted this in the mid atlantic thread but I doubt I will get any argument or debate there since JB is pretty universally hated in that forum.  I think he has more fans in this region, and my guess is because he simply forecasts a lot of snow, but since you get more snow he is right by default here more then down there.  I wanted to know what others thought of this so I am posting it here also.  Please feel free to refute my arguments...

Ok so I had some time to kill waiting for a meeting today and watched a JB video from the other day and he said something that really to me ended any debate in my mind on whether he is just hyping and biased or flat out lying to people in his forecasts.  Since I don't like to attack someone's integrity lightly or without evidence I decided to lay out the 4 things, debate style,  that to me prove he is lying not simply biased.  I am very curious on your thoughts and if anyone wants to try to refute please go ahead. 

1. He made an initial winter forecast way back in late summer/early fall.  Then he continued to update it but even though the state of certain pattern drivers were changing (QBO phase change fail, Pacific warm pool flip to name 2 big ones) he would simply find OTHER reasons to keep his forecast mostly the same.  That seems very odd and totally against any kind of scientific method with integrity.  "Backwards" forecasting so to speak where you make the forecast you want then find reasons to justify it.  That alone could be his bias but it has to be taken with....

2. He continued to lie and spin what he actually said so that his forecast could still verity without him having to change it.  For instance in the fall he forecasted a front loaded winter with a fast start, I think "December to remember" was his saying.  Then when December fell apart it became "cold will hit and hold in January."  Then it became "January thaw but an American Pie February coming" which of course was combined with "As I always said it will be a back loaded winter".  Then, no joke this almost sounds to crazy to be legit, but he said when early February started to fall apart, as I always thought late February and March will be rocking".  He finally started to give up the ghost only when he had absolutely not choice in the last couple weeks.  Its amazing, almost like someone else right now of his same political leaning, that he thinks he can change what he said when its all posted online for everyone to see word for word.  The first factor could be bias but this to me seems more like lies....but then there is

3. His partner at wealtherbell, Joe D, pointed out way back in early December how Winters with a west qbo and cold or cold neutral enso tend to favor an extremely positive NAO and a western Canada trough and eastern CONUS ridge.  The maps he posted turned out to be dead on for the winter.  They work together yet at that exact time JB had a winter forecast that was almost the exact opposite of what his partner was showing was likely based on the analogs, even though they work together and look at the same analogs.  Which leads to...

4.  As recently as 1-2 weeks ago JB was still hyping a cold ending in March in some form or other.  Then yesterday in his video when he finally admitted defeat on even that front (best news yet if we want cold and snow in March) he cited analogs that show the north Pacific cold pool and the warm SST off South America and in the Gulf and a strong correlation to a warm March.  But 2 weeks ago when he was citing his cold March idea he was talking about those same factors as reasons it would get cold, and now he is using them as excuses why it wont.  Ironically I agree with most of his "excuses" for why he busted only i don't believe he was oblivious to them. 

In summary I think he simply makes the forecast that will sell most then manipulates his way through the season and if it verifies somehow great, and if its even close by pure luck, he spins his way to make it better then it was.  2015 was like that where the locations of the cold and snow weren't even centered where he had it, and the reasons for the cold were totally different then the ones he used to justify his cold snowy forecast, yet he claimed total victory when the ground truth was somewhat close to his forecast even though the pattern was NOTHING like it.  And then in years like this he simply gives the excuses why he busted and moves on.  But I do not think there is ANY doubt anymore that this is simply bias.  He knows exactly what he is doing and its not bias or spin, its LIES. 

Thoughts?

[Dan76]

Spot on..to me he is basically a used car salesman for people who never bought a car,and pretty much everyone here own a car.

[WeatherFeen2000]

Sorry yanks sorry bxengine. Have a good day didn't mean to attack anyone

[doncat]

Warmest Feb on station record of 40 years with mean temp of 39.6, beating 1998 at 39.4 degrees....also comes in at 5th warmest met winter.

[Paragon]

5 hours ago, Dan76 said:

Spot on..to me he is basically a used car salesman for people who never bought a car,and pretty much everyone here own a car.

What I want to know is why more people don't use the QBO in their long range forecasts.  Every time we have one of these weirdo patterns that stick around for long periods of time it seems to be the fault of the QBO lol.  Is it that hard to predict or did it do something anomalous- again?

with a west qbo and cold or cold neutral enso tend to favor an extremely positive NAO and a western Canada trough and eastern CONUS ridge

[Paragon]

3 hours ago, doncat said:

Warmest Feb on station record of 40 years with mean temp of 39.6, beating 1998 at 39.4 degrees....also comes in at 5th warmest met winter.

What did you have at your station in Jan and Feb of 1990?  Those were some amazing back to back mild months too.

[Paragon]

5 hours ago, Dan76 said:

Spot on..to me he is basically a used car salesman for people who never bought a car,and pretty much everyone here own a car.

A lot of his business dealings must be with fossil fuel companies with how much his denialism goes over the top.  I stopped reading him after the disastrous 2001-02 winter.

[doncat]

11 minutes ago, Paragon said:

What did you have at your station in Jan and Feb of 1990?  Those were some amazing back to back mild months too.

Yes Jan was the warmest for me and Feb was about five degrees above normal also...of course this followed the record cold Dec, one of the greatest turnarounds.

[Paragon]

1 minute ago, doncat said:

Yes Jan was the warmest for me and Feb was about five degrees above normal also...of course this followed the record cold Dec, one of the greatest turnarounds.

yep and March was really warm also, that was a weird winter lol.  Then we had a bit of accumulating snow in early April.  Cold and dry (which we now almost never see) followed by warm and dry.

[Brian5671]

5 hours ago, Paragon said:

A lot of his business dealings must be with fossil fuel companies with how much his denialism goes over the top.  I stopped reading him after the disastrous 2001-02 winter.

While I dont think he's lying, he does have a severe cold bias. (Remember he also forecasts for commercial clients which pay big bucks)  He rarely if ever predicts a warm winter, and usually performs poorly in warm winters.   01-02, 05-06, 11-12 15-16 and now this winter had long drawn out warm patterns that he said were on the ropes.  He tends to focus too much on one teleconnector to lead him to the cold and snowy promised land. He stays with a busted seasonal forecast way too long-most saw that it wasn't happening in late Janauary and it took him til 2/28 to jump off the Titanic.  I never heard him mention the strong Pac Jet this year until very late.   When the pattern is cold and snowy, there's no one better.    Also agree with his interjection of AGW into the conversation, it's over the top and doesn't belong on a pay site weather discussion forum.   The last 2 winters have hurt him for sure especially in the temperature dept.  Would be interesting to see how much (if any) membership declines.

Me?  I enjoy reading him, but you have to take the above into account.  I also like Joe D's blog over there as well as the models.  Maue has done a great job on that front.

[IrishRob17]

11 hours ago, Dan76 said:

Spot on..to me he is basically a used car salesman for people who never bought a car,and pretty much everyone here own a car.

And we've owned several cars over the years. 

[BxEngine]

Pucker factor was def up driving next to tractor trailers on the TZ this morning....

[bluewave]

21 hours ago, Paragon said:

They probably should do it anyway.  Although if winter just means the three coldest/coolest months, then it won't matter how warm they get as long as the other 9 months are warmer lol.

Second winter in a row for the US when record warmth dominated  with only limited geographic areas of cold out west.

 

[psv88]

2 hours ago, Brian5671 said:

While I dont think he's lying, he does have a severe cold bias. (Remember he also forecasts for commercial clients which pay big bucks)  He rarely if ever predicts a warm winter, and usually performs poorly in warm winters.   01-02, 05-06, 11-12 15-16 and now this winter had long drawn out warm patterns that he said were on the ropes.  He tends to focus too much on one teleconnector to lead him to the cold and snowy promised land. He stays with a busted seasonal forecast way too long-most saw that it wasn't happening in late Janauary and it took him til 2/28 to jump off the Titanic.  I never heard him mention the strong Pac Jet this year until very late.   When the pattern is cold and snowy, there's no one better.    Also agree with his interjection of AGW into the conversation, it's over the top and doesn't belong on a pay site weather discussion forum.   The last 2 winters have hurt him for sure especially in the temperature dept.  Would be interesting to see how much (if any) membership declines.

Me?  I enjoy reading him, but you have to take the above into account.  I also like Joe D's blog over there as well as the models.  Maue has done a great job on that front.

Is there really a difference? Having a severe "bias" implies that one is either incompetent or lying. There is no other explanation. To consistently be wrong yet stay the course, despite the writing being on the wall, is either bad forecasting, or intentional to keep weenies interested. 

Other sites are doing the same thing (USAWX), where they hype every little event to increase traffic. The sign of a good board/forecaster is to temper expectations, let a pattern play out, and change the outlook if necessary. 

This board DOES do that for the most part, which is part of the reason i still post here. 

[psuhoffman]

11 hours ago, Paragon said:

What I want to know is why more people don't use the QBO in their long range forecasts.  Every time we have one of these weirdo patterns that stick around for long periods of time it seems to be the fault of the QBO lol.  Is it that hard to predict or did it do something anomalous- again?

with a west qbo and cold or cold neutral enso tend to favor an extremely positive NAO and a western Canada trough and eastern CONUS ridge

The problem is there is no catch all.  The QBO is one price of the puzzle but its only one piece.   The enso state is another piece and yes a combo of cold or neutral enso and west qbo is bad but there are exceptions even to that.  Just looking at those two the closest match to this year in terms of pure enso and qbo values is 2013/14.  But that year had an anomalous warm pool in the north pacific that equated to a -epo that took over the pattern most of the winter and offset a pretty positive AO, which is usually a very bad thing for our snowfall prospects.  There are lots of variables.  However, having those two variables skews the odds greatly in favor of warm.  But even enso isnt static.  The location of the enso anomalies is just as important as the standard deviation of them.  We generally want the warmer waters to be centered in the central pacific and that is regardless of enso signal.  In other words we want a modoki nino and an east based nina.  This was a west based cold/neutral winter, and even as it became totally neutral it did so by the eastern tropical pacific warming which is NOT the way we wanted it to happen if we wanted cold.  We would have been better off with a nina across the basin then a neutral with cold in the central and warm in the eastern pacific.  Seems the regardless of enso state warmer wated west places the tropical forcing in a better location to allow troughing into the eastern US.  So all of these moving parts come together and factor into the overall pattern.  And on top of that sometimes we simply get some of the factors wrong.  Patters change unexpectedly.  The QBO failed to flip phases last year...things like that.   JB tends to ignore the unfavorable factors and highlight the favorable ones.  But he has gone so far with that to the point I no longer think its honest bias and feel he is simply doing it on purpose. 

[uncle W]

so far NYC has only 35 days with a minimum of 32 or lower...the record is 37 set in 2011-12...Here are the top ten lowest amount of 32 or lower years and the snowfall that came with it...there will probably be at least three more days 32 or lower so no record will be set...we did pretty well in the snowfall dept. considering the low amount of 32 or lower days...last year the same thing but most of the snow came in the one big storm...

season.......32-.....snowfall big snow...

2016-17.....35......20.5"......9.4"

2011-12.....37........7.4"......4.3"

2015-16.....46......32.8"....27.5"

2001-02.....47........3.5"......3.0"

1997-98.....49........5.5"......5.0"

1998-99.....52......12.7"......4.5"

1982-83.....53......27.2"....17.6"

1990-91.....54......24.9"......8.9"

1999-00.....56......16.3"......5.5"

1972-73.....57........2.8"......1.8"

1952-53.....58......15.1"......4.5"

[Stormlover74]

22 minutes ago, uncle W said:

so far NYC has only 35 days with a minimum of 32 or lower...the record is 37 set in 2011-12...Here are the top ten lowest amount of 32 or lower years and the snowfall that came with it...there will probably be at least three more days 32 or lower so no record will be set...we did pretty well in the snowfall dept. considering the low amount of 32 or lower days...last year the same thing but most of the snow came in the one big storm...

season.......32-.....snowfall big snow...

2016-17.....35......20.5"......9.4"

2011-12.....37........7.4"......4.3"

2015-16.....46......32.8"....27.5"

2001-02.....47........3.5"......3.0"

1997-98.....49........5.5"......5.0"

1998-99.....52......12.7"......4.5"

1982-83.....53......27.2"....17.6"

1990-91.....54......24.9"......8.9"

1999-00.....56......16.3"......5.5"

1972-73.....57........2.8"......1.8"

1952-53.....58......15.1"......4.5"

We have a minimum of 3 days coming up so at least we won't break the record

[doncat]

Precip here during past 12 months was 36.67", which is about 11" below normal...this in spite of a fairly wet Nov-Jan. Just have a feeling it will be another dry spring-summer.

[Rjay]

On 1/31/2017 at 7:33 PM, Rjay said:

Gonna go +5  to +7 for Feb

 

On 1/31/2017 at 7:38 PM, dmillz25 said:

You'll probably bust too high. That strat split is looking pretty good for next week. Yes I know there's a lag but the gfs and euro are forecasting a kara sea ridge to pop up next week and stretch itself into GL

Woot  

[dmillz25]

Just now, Rjay said:

 

Woot  

It did all that and you still ended up right lol

[Brian5671]

I hope we never hear "vortex split" or "SSW event" ever again...what a joke.

[NJwx85]

It would be hard to find a more boring pattern over the next two weeks than the one that's being advertised by the GFS. About the only thing noteworthy is that the Northern stream stays active, so everytime the Southeast ridge tries to pump, it gets knocked back down by a polar wave. I suspect that the Southeast ridge will win out in the end, but it certainly looks cooler than it's been through mid month.

[Brian5671]

Just now, NJwx85 said:

It would be hard to find a more boring pattern over the next two weeks than the one that's being advertised by the GFS. About the only thing noteworthy is that the Northern stream stays active, so everytime the Southeast ridge tries to pump, it gets knocked back down by a polar wave. I suspect that the Southeast ridge will win out in the end, but it certainly looks cooler than it's been through mid month.

Would be nice if we could pop a storm or even a clipper for Christ's sake.     Otherwise I agree-pretty boring.