January Mid-Long Range Disco

[mitchnick]

7 minutes ago, ATreglown said:

Yes, I am more RIC, But what does that matter. This is a MA forum and should cover all area in the MA. Yes, there are some subforums, but have you seen the activity within these forums?  Next to nothing. That is why I follow the main forum!! I have tried to ask in many nice ways that you guys to the north include RIC in discussion. Maybe if you did, there would be more interested. 

There was a day when there were no sub-forums, but people from different areas broke off into separate threads. So they established the regional forums. The point is, most people care primarily with their back yards and only venture to other areas occasionally. Most people are just not that interested in areas 100 miles away except how that weather "may" impact their back yards.  It's not personal. ..it's weenie. No one stops anyone from posting unless it's an obs thread for a particular area. We have a greater number of people living in this area, so the poster numbers are higher. You guys just need more weenies down there, but I suppose people in your neck of the woods don't like winter wx that much, hence fewer posters.  The best I can say is sorry...

[ATreglown]

3 minutes ago, wxdude64 said:

What it all boils down to in the end, least with snow, is MBY. Yeah, we are all MA and we cover a wide area. There are more people north in the DC/Balt area so I'd expect the discussion to tend to go that way. I have 2-3 people out this way that chime in from time to time, otherwise I'm out on an island, it is what it is.

RIC is the capital of VA and has a high population. Maybe not NVA population, but still has a very high populated area. And one that is greatly effected by weather!!

[dallen7908]

1 hour ago, Interstate said:

Thanks... that was me...

 

But if they wait longer on the 12/0Z runs... they could just wait longer for the 6/18z.  I think it is more so that the model doesn't look as jumpy as the ones that run 4 times day.

 

Thanks again for the answer

 

They don't wait for "late" data.  They spend that time preparing the ICs for the operational run and the 51 ensembles.  I think there are on the O(25) different ICs for the ensembles.   It takes more than 6 hours to complete the entire process for one forecast cycle. 

I doubt that is the reason but your idea makes sense.  By waiting 12 hours, there is a lot of new data to ingest increasing the signal to noise ratio. 

They also need time to run 51 ensembles at 18 km resolution. I can't remember for sure but I think the ensembles are run out for 13 days 5 days a week and perhaps 45 days twice a week. 

With respect to the ICON model; I am curious as to how well it places the long waves, given its variable resolution. It might be best viewed as a regional model with no need for boundary conditions.  That said ... I'm probably wrong as I believe it was considered as a replacement for the GFS. 

[ATreglown]

2 minutes ago, mitchnick said:

There was a day when there were no sub-forums, but people from different areas broke off into separate threads. So they established the regional forums. The point is, most people care primarily with their back yards and only venture to other areas occasionally. Most people are just not that interested in areas 100 miles away except how that weather "may" impact their back yards.  It's not personal. ..it's weenie. No one stops anyone from posting unless it's an obs thread for a particular area. We have a greater number of people living in this area, so the poster numbers are higher. You guys just need more weenies down there, but I suppose people in your neck of the woods don't like winter wx that much, hence fewer posters.  The best I can say is sorry...

Thanks Mitch!! Actually you are very right. People here do not like winter weather it seems and really have no clue when a storm maybe coming!! No weenies in this area what so ever!!

 

[ATreglown]

Just now, ATreglown said:

Thanks Mitch!! Actually you are very right. People here do not like winter weather it seems and really have no clue when a storm maybe coming!! No weenies in this area what so ever!!

 

It's lonely living in the southern MA!!

 

[psuhoffman]

1 hour ago, mitchnick said:

Let me try to explain this so even you can understand.  We've been in a dry, cold pattern with very little snowfall...you still with me? If the present pattern continues,  we run the risk of repeating another 00/01 or similar fail....I know,  you're confused at this point, but hang in there young fella'! We need something to break the pattern to avoid that repeat. That's why I say we need a thaw and then hope when the cold comes back the players on the field aren't stuck where they are now. Is there any guarantee?  Well of course not. If you want a guarantee,  buy a pillow off a TV ad. But I'd rather roll the dice with a thaw and a return to cold with a likely different pattern than hope things change with what we've got now. He!!, with all these d@mn trace to 1" events,  I feel like an alcoholic in a bar with $100 in his pocket that's only allowed 1 O'Douls.

Why is a warm period necessary to change to a snowy one?  Why can't a cold dry pattern simply morph into a less cold snowy one?  Say the nao tanks. Or the epo relaxes some but doesn't flip. Or the war flexes. Any of those can simply convert this pattern into a snowier one without a torch first. I don't see why going warm makes it more likely that whatever comes after is snow. That's the part I don't get and until I see actual objective data based evidence that a snowy pattern is more likely after a warm one vs coming from a cold dry one I would rather avoid extended shutout patterns. There is no guarantee things are any better and we could just waste 2 weeks. 

[ATreglown]

 

[Scraff]

7 minutes ago, ATreglown said:

Thanks Mitch!! Actually you are very right. People here do not like winter weather it seems and really have no clue when a storm maybe coming!! No weenies in this area what so ever!!

 

I’ll say this about Richmond...maybe not a lot of winter weather weenies, but damn you have some great breweries!  Spent many a day and night at just about all of them.  

[ATreglown]

7 minutes ago, Scraff said:

I’ll say this about Richmond...maybe not a lot of winter weather weenies, but damn you have some great breweries!  Spent many a day and night at just about all of them.  

Yes we do. And for those that love their wine, we have plenty of those in the area as well. We may not do snow well, but we have the beverage rocking in central VA!! 

 

[pasnownut]

1 hour ago, psuhoffman said:

Forecasts didn't used to even attempt to go out that far. And they probably shouldn't now. Perhaps they issued a forecast to day 7 as a novelty but the reliability was low. Still is. Even in the 80s and 90s the 5 day planner was as far as the weather channel went. No 7-10 day nonsense. But forecasts back then had to rely on analogs and pattern progression. Both are still used today. No good forecaster just runs with a model output 100% in the long range. Pattern recognition and analogs should be weighted also and are. But more tools are better then less. Forecasts are better today then 25 and 50 years ago. There were huge 24 hour busts on significant storms all the time back then. Almost never anymore. Now a 48-72 hour bust is a big deal. That's a big change in warning time on synoptic events. Maybe someday we can push that to 7 days with accuracy but not yet. But the argument that computer guidance is making forecasting worse is utter nonsense. Some people don't know how to use it. But if someone hits themself in the face with a hammer it's not the hammers fault. And a hammer is way more likely to be effective if it has a 6 inch handle and the nail is right in front of you versus a hammer with a 7 foot handle trying to hit the nail on the other side of the room. But just because you miss the nail with the 7 foot hammer doesn't mean we should throw away all the hammers and just hit the nails with sticks.  

That is exactly my point. Weenies don’t know how to use the tool and think that every 6 hours the forecast is better and can be taken verbatim. Whether joking or not,  we see it all the time. I will make no claim to know how to read every model all the time but I know it is just a tool in the weather warchest. I would love to see verification scores increase for every model (even the JMA) and for more certainty with medium and longer range forecasting. Unfortunately if you look at the Euro with its recent upgrades....and how it struggles, I think it’s fair to say that we are not there yet. 

[Bob Chill]

56 minutes ago, Ralph Wiggum said:

4 hours ago, Neblizzard said:

That’s quite a robust -AO/-NAO.  Too bad we are losing the pacific but this time of year we can get the job done.  I doubt anything will cut as long as that block is in place 

Eff the PAC. I've seen enough "epic" PAC teleconnections over the years that fail to produce aside from cold or light snows. Give me a favorable AO and NAO any day of the week and twice on Sunday and I will take my chances. Set me up a solid 50/50 low, blocking in the NAO and AO regions, and a minor SE Ridge and that could work.

What about 00-01 and 12-13? Nearly door to door -ao/nao disasters. Both are equally as important. There is no one or the other for snow here. If I had to pick my poison, I'd take a disaster atlantic in exchange for a primo pac any year. Nothing fixes a diaster pac. When upstream is nothing but maritime warmth it will never end well. No amount of atlantic help can fix that. On the other hand, a primo pac will at least deliver winter wx even with a crap ao/nao. 

The big winters are a harmony of both. Our worst winters are almost always becuase the pac stole our winter. 

 

 

[pasnownut]

3 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

What about 00-01 and 11-12? Nearly door to door -ao/nao disasters. Both are equally as important. There is no one or the other for snow here. If I had to pick my poison, I'd take a disaster atlantic in exchange for a primo pac any year. Nothing fixes a diaster pac. When upstream is nothing but maritime warmth it will never end well. No amount of atlantic help can fix that. On the other hand, a primo pac will at least deliver winter wx even with a crap ao/nao. 

The big winters are a harmony of both. Our worst winters are almost always becuase the pac stole our winter. 

 

 

I’d tend to agree. Give me a +PNA and meh Atlantic and I’m in, as source regions mean far too much at the latitudes we live in. We are NOT NE forum and need cold close or here to even get to first base. Polar and polar pacific is workable for us if we have some help from AO/NAO. 

Pacific air without ....fugetabouttit

[Bob Chill]

I just decided the ICON is ok

[wxdude64]

1 minute ago, Bob Chill said:

I just decided the ICON is ok

Well that definitely shows what it has looked like most of winter out this way......

[WEATHER53]

The bitter cold was fun for a day for sure but it's definitely not a snow maker in a very dry Nina 

tonight is fine, normal DC cold right now suitable for snow. It was said earlier patter for a while is cold front, cold a day or two then milding  up to very mild one maybe two days then cold front and repeat

that's no torch even if vastly different but different is better now 

[pasnownut]

43 minutes ago, ATreglown said:

It's lonely living in the southern MA!!

 

If it makes you feel any better, come check out the central PA forum.  It’s a morgue in there.   couple of snowhounds and several great Mets. At one time we talked a lot about snow (much like here), but we have several warm guys that Pooh Pooh almost every snow event....and after a couple brutal years....they won. It’s a ghost town compared to what it once was. Pm me if you wanna chat about snow. I’ll root for your area. I friggin love snow and if u get it and I don’t, all good. Send some my way next time. 

[MountainGeek]

44 minutes ago, ATreglown said:

It's lonely living in the southern MA!!

 

Sometimes we kid around and give each other a hard time, but as long as you're respectful of others and generally stay on topic, I'm glad to have you on board.

If you get stuck in a long snow drought in the future, I can think of a few of the northern MA folks who might encourage you to chase snow as long as you have a keg or two in tow.  

[pasnownut]

2 minutes ago, MountainGeek said:

Sometimes we kid around and give each other a hard time, but as long as you're respectful of others and generally stay on topic, I'm glad to have you on board.

If you get stuck in a long snow drought in the future, I can think of a few of the northern MA folks who might encourage you to chase snow as long as you have a keg or two in tow.  

Lol. See my post above yours. 

nail hit squarely on head ......;)

[anotherman]

1 minute ago, pasnownut said:

If it makes you feel any better, come check out the central PA forum.  It’s a morgue in there.   couple of snowhounds and several great Mets. At one time we talked a lot about snow (much like here), but we have several warm guys that Pooh Pooh almost every snow event....and after a couple brutal years....they won. It’s a ghost town compared to what it once was. Pm me if you wanna chat about snow. I’ll root for your area. I friggin love snow and if u get it and I don’t, all good. Send some my way next time. 

I've been noticing how dead it is.  Pretty pathetic.  I'll try and post more.

[MountainGeek]

28 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

What about 00-01 and 12-13? Nearly door to door -ao/nao disasters. Both are equally as important. There is no one or the other for snow here. If I had to pick my poison, I'd take a disaster atlantic in exchange for a primo pac any year. Nothing fixes a diaster pac. When upstream is nothing but maritime warmth it will never end well. No amount of atlantic help can fix that. On the other hand, a primo pac will at least deliver winter wx even with a crap ao/nao. 

The big winters are a harmony of both. Our worst winters are almost always becuase the pac stole our winter. 

 

Agree that the PAC seems to trump a lot of other things....wasn't the consistently hostile PAC the primary driver of last winter's epic torches and near historic fail? 

[knglover]

This is the weirdest day ever on these forums.  Is this what it is like when weather nerds (myself included) get bored?

[ATreglown]

3 minutes ago, pasnownut said:

If it makes you feel any better, come check out the central PA forum.  It’s a morgue in there.   couple of snowhounds and several great Mets. At one time we talked a lot about snow (much like here), but we have several warm guys that Pooh Pooh almost every snow event....and after a couple brutal years....they won. It’s a ghost town compared to what it once was. Pm me if you wanna chat about snow. I’ll root for your area. I friggin love snow and if u get it and I don’t, all good. Send some my way next time. 

I feel your pain!! Even when things are good, it's still a ghost town around here. Will keep in touch through PM sounds good!!

[cae]

I just looked through whaterver verification data I could find on the ICON, and the short story is that it's probably somewhere between the CMC and JMA.  It's a relatively new model though, and there has been a fairly rapid improvement in its verification scores over the last couple of years. 

The other thing I learned is that we should never ever use the Russian weather model. 

[Bob Chill]

Gfs looks half decent in the upper levels for the trailing wave. Good bit of room to turn.

[ATreglown]

12 minutes ago, MountainGeek said:

Sometimes we kid around and give each other a hard time, but as long as you're respectful of others and generally stay on topic, I'm glad to have you on board.

If you get stuck in a long snow drought in the future, I can think of a few of the northern MA folks who might encourage you to chase snow as long as you have a keg or two in tow.  

Thank you. I may not have a keg in tow, but I am my own boss, so I can chase with a case of fine VA Cab Sev. in tow if that is okay!!

[psuhoffman]

35 minutes ago, Bob Chill said:

What about 00-01 and 12-13? Nearly door to door -ao/nao disasters. Both are equally as important. There is no one or the other for snow here. If I had to pick my poison, I'd take a disaster atlantic in exchange for a primo pac any year. Nothing fixes a diaster pac. When upstream is nothing but maritime warmth it will never end well. No amount of atlantic help can fix that. On the other hand, a primo pac will at least deliver winter wx even with a crap ao/nao. 

The big winters are a harmony of both. Our worst winters are almost always becuase the pac stole our winter. 

 

 

I agree both are important. I've long thought 00/01 was just bad luck though. I don't dread that analog like some others.  Yea the PAC at times was a problem but at other times it was just bad luck.  A weird mix of close misses in every direction or temps being slightly too warm when we did get some precip hits with decent low tracks. The Jan 20 storm was ok in D.C. But was 8-10" just to the north of the urban corridor. A couple coastals mossed just east. Then a big bomb in early February missed just northwest. My area got 6-8" and just north of here even more. The cities were just rain. Then the march disaster was a brilliant h5 setup that just crapped the bed at the surface. Things came together too slow. But give me that pattern again any day.  Sometimes it's just bad luck. I didn't think the pattern was bad that year it was just perhaps out worst run of luck in a good pattern ever. I think if we replayed that general pattern again we could easily end up with a 20-30" winter in D.C.-Baltimore. 

[pasnownut]

12 minutes ago, anotherman said:

I've been noticing how dead it is.  Pretty pathetic.  I'll try and post more.

No worries bud. I know you are “one of us”. 

In case it hasn’t dawned on you yet (highly unlikely) I sorta dig winter. I let those guys have the summer and step away so they can gloat. I hate Summer. They win. 

But.....in the winter.....step aside. It’s my time and if the forum doesn’t wanna stand up for what we enjoy during that time, the crew down here is perty cool...and accepting of snow misfits (Just don’t post big snow totals.... Let them always win down here ;).  The “amateurs” here are some of the best hobbyists I’ve ever chatted with.  Good stuff

Nut

[ATreglown]

Move this to a different area, but this seems to be a hot topic area so I am putting this here for now.  

 

7.6 earthquake in Honduras.

[psuhoffman]

There are also caveats to the PAC vs ATL debate. If the Pacific is just a pile of garbage bad then it's hard for the Atlantic to overcome. But if it's just kinda bad then sometimes in peak climo blocking can force a system under and it's just cold enough for a sloppy event. Also late in the season the nao can dominate the pattern because of the shorter wavelengths things can buckle so much that a pad Pacific can be overcome. Neither of those things invalidates what bob said which is true in general we need both to help in order to have a good chance. Just pointing out there are exceptions to every rule. 

[pasnownut]

3 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

There are also caveats to the PAC vs ATL debate. If the Pacific is just a pile of garbage bad then it's hard for the Atlantic to overcome. But if it's just kinda bad then sometimes in peak climo blocking can force a system under and it's just cold enough for a sloppy event. Also late in the season the nao can dominate the pattern because of the shorter wavelengths things can buckle so much that a pad Pacific can be overcome. Neither of those things invalidates what bob said which is true in general we need both to help in order to have a good chance. Just pointing out there are exceptions to every rule. 

But like you said if you had to pick one....it would be pacific 10:1