Spring Banter Thread

[psv88]

Anyone know whats up with the NWS website? The point and click forecasts have been replaced by zonal forecasts and now the page wont load at all.

[Brian5671]

Just now, psv88 said:

Anyone know whats up with the NWS website? The point and click forecasts have been replaced by zonal forecasts and now the page wont load at all.

I noticed that yesterday that I could only get zones.  

[JerseyWx]

That's only for the Point & Click in Upton's forecast area.  If you try any location within Mount Holly's region it works just fine (Morris, Sussex, Warren, etc.)  State College and others are fine too.

[bluewave]

Now the UKMET is beating the Euro and GFS with hurricane tracks like it has with winter snowstorms recently.

https://mobile.twitter.com/EricBlake12/status/849265192961748994/photo/1

Eric Blake  @EricBlake12
The #Matthew TCR is out: One tidbit is the UKMET track success (EGRI) vs the ECMWF (EMXI)- unexpected! @77BlueSky77 hurricanes.gov/data/tcr/AL142…pic.twitter.com/926MdqlxLW 7:19 AM - 4 Apr 2017

[jm1220]

9 hours ago, Paragon said:

Thanks- where were the winds and the surge the highest?

The surge was highest in NY Harbor where the funneling effect was worst, so probably Staten Island. The wind actually seemed worst over the twin forks. Here we had gusts to 85-90 mph. 

[bluewave]

You can see how Sandy surpassed the previous highest tide level at many locations by 3 to 4 feet.

https://www2.ucar.edu/atmosnews/perspective/8585/dissecting-sandy-s-surge

https://ny.water.usgs.gov/projects/hurr_sandy_2012/Sandy_peaks.pdf

 

[LongBeachSurfFreak]

27 minutes ago, bluewave said:

You can see how Sandy surpassed the previous highest tide level at many locations by 3 to 4 feet.

https://www2.ucar.edu/atmosnews/perspective/8585/dissecting-sandy-s-surge

https://ny.water.usgs.gov/projects/hurr_sandy_2012/Sandy_peaks.pdf

 

Impressive that November 53 was right up there with decemeber 92 for the highest non tropical system surge. I would guess judging from the damage pics I have seen in ocean city Md march 60 Ash Wednesday storm was much worse further south 

[LongBeachSurfFreak]

12 hours ago, Paragon said:

Unfortunately (or fortunately) I think that that the geometry of the NY coastline would prevent such a scenario from occurring this far to the west (NYC).  Just east of the center means the storm would basically have to skim the coast for the eastern parts of the city to get that a place like Manhattan could never get that because it's tucked in- the storm would weaken significantly.  You would need a track bending back into NJ and even then you're better off with a hybrid system with a large circulation.

The eastern shores of NJ basically jut out almost to just under Coney Island.  A storm that close to shore is going to weaken (like Irene.)  Even one moving quickly.

 

It's totally possible. Just extremely unlikely. A 38 type storm with a sandy 850 setup with a landfall 50 miles further north on the jersey shore brings the NE eye wall over NYC. Like I said extremely unlikely but not impossible. To make it happen you would want a cat 5 following the exact track as 38 up until about hatteras. Then follow the Gulf Stream until being sling shot WNW. This would limit any potential weakening  do to land interaction or cooler water.  That's how 38 hit LI with a fully intact cat 3 eye wall. Thus the 15-20' surge. This scenario  would blow Sandy away for damages most likely in excess of 300 billion. The surge impacts are obvious but a cat 3 eye wall going through Manhattan would also cause billions in wind damage. The winds at the tops of the skyscrapers would be closer to cat 5 and glass blowout would be insane. There could even be complete structural failures. Roll the dice enough times and this could happen

[forkyfork]

i'm going to puerto rico this weekend and takeoff is scheduled for 8:30 am thurs. plz slow the storm down

[bluewave]

6 hours ago, LongBeachSurfFreak said:

Impressive that November 53 was right up there with decemeber 92 for the highest non tropical system surge. I would guess judging from the damage pics I have seen in ocean city Md march 60 Ash Wednesday storm was much worse further south 

Wantagh just got a new mesonet weather station with a webcam. It looks like it's right along the Wantagh Parkway.

http://www.nysmesonet.org/mesonow#?stid=WANT

[LongBeachSurfFreak]

24 minutes ago, bluewave said:

Wantagh just got a new mesonet weather station with a webcam. It looks like it's right along the Wantagh Parkway.

http://www.nysmesonet.org/mesonow#?stid=WANT

Very interesting! But to be honest I have no idea where that is. Based on the scrubby vegetation it's somewhere south of merrick road. But it's listed as at 28'.... the only place that has those kinds of elevations and vegitation is cedar creek park where there are hills that were created when they dug the tanks for the sewage treatment plant. 

[tdp146]

1 hour ago, LongBeachSurfFreak said:

Very interesting! But to be honest I have no idea where that is. Based on the scrubby vegetation it's somewhere south of merrick road. But it's listed as at 28'.... the only place that has those kinds of elevations and vegitation is cedar creek park where there are hills that were created when they dug the tanks for the sewage treatment plant. 

It is cedar creek park. Take a look at the link blue posted. At the bottom it shows a map of all the locations. 

Pretty good spot. Should have some good wind observations. 

[Paragon]

10 hours ago, LongBeachSurfFreak said:

It's totally possible. Just extremely unlikely. A 38 type storm with a sandy 850 setup with a landfall 50 miles further north on the jersey shore brings the NE eye wall over NYC. Like I said extremely unlikely but not impossible. To make it happen you would want a cat 5 following the exact track as 38 up until about hatteras. Then follow the Gulf Stream until being sling shot WNW. This would limit any potential weakening  do to land interaction or cooler water.  That's how 38 hit LI with a fully intact cat 3 eye wall. Thus the 15-20' surge. This scenario  would blow Sandy away for damages most likely in excess of 300 billion. The surge impacts are obvious but a cat 3 eye wall going through Manhattan would also cause billions in wind damage. The winds at the tops of the skyscrapers would be closer to cat 5 and glass blowout would be insane. There could even be complete structural failures. Roll the dice enough times and this could happen

Question is could such a storm maintain its hurricane structure or would the interactions necessary to cause this kind of path make it a hybrid?  I completely agree with need a really strong hurricane at Cape Hatteras to need some overhead to work with.  Thing is, I don't think a Cat 5 has ever made it to Cape Hatteras.  The farthest north we've had a Cat 4 is SC (something like Hazel.)  So let's say we have that kind of strength, by the time it gets to Cape Hatteras it would be a strong Cat 3.  It would need to maintain that kind of intensity to be as strong as what 1938 was.  So we also need an accelerating storm.    The sling shot WNW is what concerns me.  Those tend to reduce the intensity of storms and/or make them transition into extratropical.  But let's say the storm is moving super fast at that point so it doesn't have time to transition.  Sandy would actually have stayed tropical if it didn't slow down- it was still a hurricane within a few hours of landfall before it stalled off of South Jersey.  I could see it happening, but it would be so rare, and even going back to the 1600s and all the records we have, it's never happened.  There have been other storms that did the sling shot scenario you depicted and hit the Jersey shore but the strongest of them was a Cat 2.

How about something like 1938 taking the path of August 1893 (weird those two years have the same four numbers in them)?  I think that's more likely and August is a good time for strong storms because of peak heating.  This would be horrible for our area (Nassau County) as well as probably submerge JFK and most of Southern Queens.  The Jamaica Bay region would be like New Orleans was during Katrina.

 

[Paragon]

12 hours ago, jm1220 said:

The surge was highest in NY Harbor where the funneling effect was worst, so probably Staten Island. The wind actually seemed worst over the twin forks. Here we had gusts to 85-90 mph. 

Yes I remember something like 96 mph in Suffolk County while we and the Jersey shore were between 85-90.  NY Harbor also had peak high tide right around the time of landfall or shortly thereafter- so everything pretty much aligned perfectly.  They had between a 15-20 foot storm surge near Staten Island and Lower Manhattan didn't they?

 

There were a lot of fires over the Rockaways, whole towns got burned down.  And remember all the gas shortages and the long lines and the people fighting each other?

 

 

[Paragon]

15 hours ago, bluewave said:

Great long term record of spring coming earlier to places like Kyoto, Japan.

https://mobile.twitter.com/ericsteig/status/848656113201315840

Wow, that graph fell off a cliff starting around 2000.

[LongBeachSurfFreak]

4 hours ago, tdp146 said:

It is cedar creek park. Take a look at the link blue posted. At the bottom it shows a map of all the locations. 

Pretty good spot. Should have some good wind observations. 

Nice!!! Great for sea breeze obs and radiational cooling. And of course wind. Would love to have had that there for March 2010, Irene and of course Sandy. 

[LongBeachSurfFreak]

1 hour ago, Paragon said:

Question is could such a storm maintain its hurricane structure or would the interactions necessary to cause this kind of path make it a hybrid?  I completely agree with need a really strong hurricane at Cape Hatteras to need some overhead to work with.  Thing is, I don't think a Cat 5 has ever made it to Cape Hatteras.  The farthest north we've had a Cat 4 is SC (something like Hazel.)  So let's say we have that kind of strength, by the time it gets to Cape Hatteras it would be a strong Cat 3.  It would need to maintain that kind of intensity to be as strong as what 1938 was.  So we also need an accelerating storm.    The sling shot WNW is what concerns me.  Those tend to reduce the intensity of storms and/or make them transition into extratropical.  But let's say the storm is moving super fast at that point so it doesn't have time to transition.  Sandy would actually have stayed tropical if it didn't slow down- it was still a hurricane within a few hours of landfall before it stalled off of South Jersey.  I could see it happening, but it would be so rare, and even going back to the 1600s and all the records we have, it's never happened.  There have been other storms that did the sling shot scenario you depicted and hit the Jersey shore but the strongest of them was a Cat 2.

How about something like 1938 taking the path of August 1893 (weird those two years have the same four numbers in them)?  I think that's more likely and August is a good time for strong storms because of peak heating.  This would be horrible for our area (Nassau County) as well as probably submerge JFK and most of Southern Queens.  The Jamaica Bay region would be like New Orleans was during Katrina.

 

You definitely want this to happen in August and during a year with well above normal water temps off the east coast. The reason the Gulf Stream is so important it has a very high oceacianic heat content. It's also far enough offshore to reduce land interaction. One of the reasons 38 was so much stronger then most other hurricanes up here it didn't hit the outer banks. This helped to keep the core intact. 

[Paragon]

2 hours ago, LongBeachSurfFreak said:

You definitely want this to happen in August and during a year with well above normal water temps off the east coast. The reason the Gulf Stream is so important it has a very high oceacianic heat content. It's also far enough offshore to reduce land interaction. One of the reasons 38 was so much stronger then most other hurricanes up here it didn't hit the outer banks. This helped to keep the core intact. 

Sounds like a preferable path is for it to swing north, hit the gulf stream and then turn to the northwest.  Another one that was really strong was the Massachusetts Colonial Hurricane (1635?)  Both it and the 1938 Hurricane were rated on the border between Cat 3 and Cat 4.  There's also some evidence of a very strong hurricane that hit the area sometime in the 14th century.  Even independent of track, it's basically a 1 in 300 year occurrence.

 

 

[bluewave]

11 hours ago, tdp146 said:

It is cedar creek park. Take a look at the link blue posted. At the bottom it shows a map of all the locations. 

Pretty good spot. Should have some good wind observations. 

It looks like the SW corner of the park right where the parkway bends near the first bridge. Great spot to catch strong wind gusts in the area. Had a gust to 50 mph there on 3/1-3/2. Each of the 5 boroughs in NYC are getting a new site. So hopefully the Manhattan site can act as a back up to Central Park.

https://m.facebook.com/nysmesonet/photos/a.1031776240166137.1073741828.941275762549519/1521830897827333/?type=3

[jm1220]

6 hours ago, Paragon said:

Sounds like a preferable path is for it to swing north, hit the gulf stream and then turn to the northwest.  Another one that was really strong was the Massachusetts Colonial Hurricane (1635?)  Both it and the 1938 Hurricane were rated on the border between Cat 3 and Cat 4.  There's also some evidence of a very strong hurricane that hit the area sometime in the 14th century.  Even independent of track, it's basically a 1 in 300 year occurrence.

 

 

Sandy was a version of the Perfect Storm 1991 that was much more powerful due to the size, still intact hurricane core up to near landfall, much lower pressure and strong interaction with the mid latitude jet which also forced a track NW into the coast. Something like this happens maybe once a century or less around our area. 

You really don't get a NW shifting track this far north without some interaction/phase with the jet stream and blocking high to the NE. The 1938 hurricane was very likely still a hurricane but it was also probably interacting with the jet and starting to become extra tropical. And that's what you really need for the worst case scenario in NYC. 

[NJwx85]

After a bit of dry out coming over the next week or so, could be another return to a wet pattern with another big ULL towards the end of next week.

[forkyfork]

one system does not make a pattern. and it's one model at 222 hours

[Cfa]

5 hours ago, bluewave said:

It looks like the SW corner of the park right where the parkway bends near the first bridge. Great spot to catch strong wind gusts in the area. Had a gust to 50 mph there on 3/1-3/2. Each of the 5 boroughs in NYC are getting a new site. So hopefully the Manhattan site can act as a back up to Central Park.

https://m.facebook.com/nysmesonet/photos/a.1031776240166137.1073741828.941275762549519/1521830897827333/?type=3

The Queens site featured in the link appears to be Queens College, I think it'll make a good location. And I hope the Manhattan site they choose better reflects Manhattan's climate than Central Park.

[LongBeachSurfFreak]

9 hours ago, Paragon said:

Sounds like a preferable path is for it to swing north, hit the gulf stream and then turn to the northwest.  Another one that was really strong was the Massachusetts Colonial Hurricane (1635?)  Both it and the 1938 Hurricane were rated on the border between Cat 3 and Cat 4.  There's also some evidence of a very strong hurricane that hit the area sometime in the 14th century.  Even independent of track, it's basically a 1 in 300 year occurrence.

 

 

The colonial hurricane was definitely the strongest to hit NE in recorded history. But there is no way to tell how bad it was here. The best chance we have of recovering another Sandy caliber event in our life times is with climate change. Obviously the warming of our coastal waters and the increase in blocking patterns. Personally I doubt I ever see another Sandy. 

[bluewave]

28 minutes ago, Cfa said:

The Queens site featured in the link appears to be Queens College, I think it'll make a good location. And I hope the Manhattan site they choose better reflects Manhattan's climate than Central Park.

Yeah, those buildings looked familiar. The new Manhattan site probably won't have the obstruction issues like the Central Park site since the mesonet stations are very carefully seated. The vertical profiling capabilities of several sites will be an improvement over the two daily NWS ballon launches.

https://dailygazette.com/article/2015/07/20/ny-mesonet-progress-report

Each station will have one observation tower. These look like cellphone towers but are a fraction of the height, standing 30 feet tall. The towers will be centered in a 33-by-33-foot, fenced-in plot of land. They must be at least 300 feet from any tall obstacles and potential heat sources, including trees, buildings and pavement.

The stations will be solar-powered and self-sufficient, taking measurements for air temperature, relative humidity, wind speed and direction, solar radiation, soil moisture and temperature, and precipitation amounts for rainfall and snow.

What separates the NYS Mesonet from other systems like it are the 17 planned enhanced sites for the project. These stations will require taller towers and more land, and their observations will focus on the lower miles of the atmosphere for weather prediction and monitoring.

All the stations will report data to the university's research center every three to five minutes. That means the center could be receiving, processing, and quality-controlling over 500,000 observations every day.

“Weather is essential to life, property, even the economy,” Thorncroft said. “The information these stations can provide will be invaluable to our communities.”

 

[psv88]

32 minutes ago, bluewave said:

Yeah, those buildings looked familiar. The new Manhattan site probably won't have the obstruction issues like the Central Park site since the mesonet stations are very carefully seated. The vertical profiling capabilities of several sites will be an improvement over the two daily NWS ballon launches.

https://dailygazette.com/article/2015/07/20/ny-mesonet-progress-report

Each station will have one observation tower. These look like cellphone towers but are a fraction of the height, standing 30 feet tall. The towers will be centered in a 33-by-33-foot, fenced-in plot of land. They must be at least 300 feet from any tall obstacles and potential heat sources, including trees, buildings and pavement.

The stations will be solar-powered and self-sufficient, taking measurements for air temperature, relative humidity, wind speed and direction, solar radiation, soil moisture and temperature, and precipitation amounts for rainfall and snow.

What separates the NYS Mesonet from other systems like it are the 17 planned enhanced sites for the project. These stations will require taller towers and more land, and their observations will focus on the lower miles of the atmosphere for weather prediction and monitoring.

All the stations will report data to the university's research center every three to five minutes. That means the center could be receiving, processing, and quality-controlling over 500,000 observations every day.

“Weather is essential to life, property, even the economy,” Thorncroft said. “The information these stations can provide will be invaluable to our communities.”

 

 

Are there any additional Mesonet stations planned for Nassau or Suffolk?

[bluewave]

18 minutes ago, psv88 said:

 

Are there any additional Mesonet stations planned for Nassau or Suffolk?

The only 2 that I know of are Wantagh and Southhold. The 5 NYC sites in each borough will be rooftop stations on 5 story buildings or smaller. They tried to get another one into Central Park but they couldn't get the space. There is a nice presentation in the link below.

https://ams.confex.com/ams/96Annual/webprogram/Paper283586.html

The New York State (NYS) Mesonet Early Warning Weather Detection System is an advanced, statewide weather station network explicitly designed to enhance local data collection for improved weather monitoring and prediction. The Mesonetwork will consist of 125 surface weather stations with at least one station in every county and borough across the state.

Each of the Mesonet's 125 weather stations will measure surface temperature, relative humidity, wind speed and direction, precipitation, solar radiation, atmospheric pressure, photographic images and soil moisture and temperature at three depths (5, 25, and 50 cm). In addition, seventeen of the sites (known as �enhanced sites�) will be outfitted with lidars and microwave radiometers providing wind, temperature, and moisture profiles in the vertical. Twenty of the sites will measure snow depth and snow water equivalent for hydrological applications, and seventeen of the sites will measure the surface energy budget, including radiation, sensible, latent and ground heat fluxes. All data will be collected every five minutes and then transmitted in real-time to a central location at the University at Albany, where the data will be quality controlled and archived, and then disseminated to a variety of users. Upon completion, real time data along with graphical products will be available to the public via a website (http://nysmesonet.org).

The first Mesonet site was installed in August 2015. Site installations will continue through 2016, with the entire network expected to be completed by December 2016. This weather detection system will provide federal, state, and local communities with access to high-resolution, real-time data for improved public safety and more efficient, weather-sensitive operations. Indeed with the addition of these dense networks of surface and profiling sensors, the NYS Mesonet promises a new generation of local weather observations that will support more accurate, more precise decision-making in agriculture, emergency management, energy, ground transportation and aviation. This presentation provides a general technical overview of the system.

[doncat]

23 minutes ago, bluewave said:

The only 2 that I know of are Wantagh and Southhold. The 5 NYC sites in each borough will be rooftop stations on 5 story buildings or smaller. They tried to get another one into Central Park but they couldn't get the space. There is a nice presentation in the link below.

https://ams.confex.com/ams/96Annual/webprogram/Paper283586.html

The New York State (NYS) Mesonet Early Warning Weather Detection System is an advanced, statewide weather station network explicitly designed to enhance local data collection for improved weather monitoring and prediction. The Mesonetwork will consist of 125 surface weather stations with at least one station in every county and borough across the state.

Each of the Mesonet's 125 weather stations will measure surface temperature, relative humidity, wind speed and direction, precipitation, solar radiation, atmospheric pressure, photographic images and soil moisture and temperature at three depths (5, 25, and 50 cm). In addition, seventeen of the sites (known as �enhanced sites�) will be outfitted with lidars and microwave radiometers providing wind, temperature, and moisture profiles in the vertical. Twenty of the sites will measure snow depth and snow water equivalent for hydrological applications, and seventeen of the sites will measure the surface energy budget, including radiation, sensible, latent and ground heat fluxes. All data will be collected every five minutes and then transmitted in real-time to a central location at the University at Albany, where the data will be quality controlled and archived, and then disseminated to a variety of users. Upon completion, real time data along with graphical products will be available to the public via a website (http://nysmesonet.org).

The first Mesonet site was installed in August 2015. Site installations will continue through 2016, with the entire network expected to be completed by December 2016. This weather detection system will provide federal, state, and local communities with access to high-resolution, real-time data for improved public safety and more efficient, weather-sensitive operations. Indeed with the addition of these dense networks of surface and profiling sensors, the NYS Mesonet promises a new generation of local weather observations that will support more accurate, more precise decision-making in agriculture, emergency management, energy, ground transportation and aviation. This presentation provides a general technical overview of the system.

Rooftop stations for the five boroughs? Don't like that... certainly here on SI, they could find a ground level location.

[bluewave]

19 minutes ago, doncat said:

Rooftop stations for the five boroughs? Don't like that... certainly here on SI, they could find a ground level location.

Should be an improvement for NYC since the old weather station was on top of the Belvedere Castle. Will also help get better wind readings since it's tough to find open spaces in NYC to put these stations. The elevated new webcams on the sites will also give great views of storms coming in.

[uncle W]

when I lived in Brooklyn I had a roof top location...There was a school building about 100ft to my south...It was five stories tall...It would play havoc with a south wind...The wind would blow around the school and usually was se instead of south...it was the only place I could set up my instruments...