Jump to content
  • Member Statistics

    17,606
    Total Members
    7,904
    Most Online
    ArlyDude
    Newest Member
    ArlyDude
    Joined

Central PA - Winter 2018-19


pasnownut

Recommended Posts

  • Replies 2.5k
  • Created
  • Last Reply
14 minutes ago, canderson said:

I have a fear with this weekend storm. With a 1040 high sitting over us couldn't that very easily kill any northern edge of precip and suppress this storm south? 

For instance, take a look at the 0z GFS ensemble and I think that's what it's depicting. 

Yes..some of the 6z models showed confluence sending this baby a bit further south. 

On the other hand, sometimes confluence isn't as strong as modeled, so there's that...

This setup sort of reminds me of 1/30/2010. We all remember what happened after that. :) 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

57 minutes ago, Itstrainingtime said:

Yes..some of the 6z models showed confluence sending this baby a bit further south. 

On the other hand, sometimes confluence isn't as strong as modeled, so there's that...

This setup sort of reminds me of 1/30/2010. We all remember what happened after that. :) 

about 45" of white gold

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, canderson said:

I have a fear with this weekend storm. With a 1040 high sitting over us couldn't that very easily kill any northern edge of precip and suppress this storm south? 

For instance, take a look at the 0z GFS ensemble and I think that's what it's depicting. 

I doubt this storm is going to get squashed south as far the Dec 9th storm was. We do have a stronger high but it's north of us vs pretty much over our heads (the case on Dec 9). So I think the DC gang will probably see this but it remains to be seen how much we can get into our region. I don't think the high positioning is as much an issue as amplification of the southern wave and interaction with the northern stream. Most guidance gets initial overrunning lighter snows into PA but have kept the bulk of precip south of the region. The GFS had been the flagship for a C-PA strike but it has shifted that axis south especially in the 6z and new 12z guidance. I guess I'd be lying if I didn't admit that seeing southern VA get hit with another significant winter storm would be brutal after throwing away December with cutter after cutter after that last southern storm. Still 3-4 days out though and different setup. These gulf storms usually have pretty decent shields and can creep north with time... or I guess BACK north. We would have a solid cold airmass and likely at least climo average snow ratios (about 12-13:1 depending on where in C-PA this time of year so just a few tenths of precip would give us a solid advisory. 

There is the NAM at range right now.. I'm sure that'll never let us down haha.

Sidenote with regard to modeling... I've saw some discussion in other threads about the impact of the Gov't shutdown as it pertains to the GFS model. Been trying to look for some sourcing to get a better picture on if that is really affecting that model adversely. With the partial shutdown, the scientists responsible on a daily basis with keeping the model in line with updates and adjustments has not been going on (apparently the maintenance of the American tools for essential forecasting duties is deemed not essential). I'm sure that probably involves the NAM too. This may be affecting the FV3-GFS more adversely than the op GFS right now too. Either way this is something to keep in mind with trying to get a handle on this upcoming system. 

 

Quote

 

NOAA's partial shutdown means operations that are considered “mission critical” are still functioning. Those operations include things like populating the weather.gov website with forecasts, and ensuring major weather events are watched and warned across the country. Those government employees whose jobs fall under the status “mission critical” are still working, while not being paid.

Unfortunately, maintenance on the American computer model, known as the Global Forecasting System (GFS), is not considered critical.

The result?

According to the Washington Post’s Capital Weather Gang, the GFS is running poorly.

Typically, a large team of scientists works quality control on the model to ensure the future forecasts for winds, temperatures, rain or snow (and a ton of other factors) are the most accurate they can possibly be. They’re checking data is entered into the extremely intricate model correctly. They’re ensuring no errors occur within the system’s output. They’re always working on improvements to the model.

Without a team to do these daily tasks, the GFS begins to degrade.

The Washington Post spoke to members of various departments who confirmed the quality of the model (and several other American computer models) is lower, and there’s simply no one to fix it.

 

Some sources: https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/weather/Government-Shutdown-Means-Some-Weather-Forecasting-Tools-are-at-Risk-504065431.html

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/another-casualty-of-the-government-shutdown-hurricane-preparedness/

Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 minutes ago, Itstrainingtime said:

Anyone else get a headache from reading Chuck's posts in the mid-Atlantic threads? 

Seeing lots of reports of snow squalls/showers/flurries around the area. Nada here. 

he should be named FROMANALTERNATEUNIVERSE

good grief.

yeah, looks squally on the radar.  I hope to see some.  Maybe we get to on sunday.

Nut

Link to comment
Share on other sites

37 minutes ago, canderson said:

Nice, Mag!

Euro looked to be a solid 1-3" for most everyone south of I-80.

Yea it had a somewhat better shield of warm advection snows, which is good to see as that could be the main precip we get from this system. It seems this storm could peak in it's high snow totals out in the midwest and upper OH valley and then the storm forms a new low off the Carolina coast and that's where the bulk of precip stays south. There's definitely overachieving potential to be had, especially from good ratios. Best lift would be fairly high (700mb and above), so the temps in that layer would be conducive for higher ratios and that would translate to the ground since there's no thermal issues. I'll be curious to see how this evolves as we get into short range. This storm looks to have a good fetch from the Gulf of Mexico so perhaps we could see an uptick in QPF. Just 0.3"-0.5" would make for a solid event and the Euro had a lot of 0.2's in the Sus Valley. 

1 hour ago, Atomixwx said:

So, should we just scrap the GFS solution at this point, given the lack of maintenance? 

I wouldn't completely disregard it.. I'm going to keep monitoring it for this upcoming storm. I don't think any actual weather data input such as balloon launches from the NWS to help with initialization has been affected but I could be wrong. The model hasn't really been showing anything insanely different or questionable with this storm, although it did switch today to line more up with other guidance after being pretty far north and our biggest fan in terms of giving most of our region a heavier snow event. I think the main thing with that is just maintaining the model and making adjustments to compensate for verification scores. With the shutdown in the middle of week 3, it's probably not having an extreme effect on that type of stuff quite yet. But if it lasts for an extended period of time (months) I could def see some issues. One of those articles mentioned the hurricane forecast models and that they use the winter months to study the previous season's hurricanes and try to improve the hurricane models off of them. The math and computer science behind the models aren't my area of expertise, but I do know there's a lot of work that on a daily basis goes into maintaining/adjusting/improving the model we love to yell at. And those people aren't able to do that right now.

Another thing that hasn't been available is all the data pertaining to the National Climatic Data Center. So there's no availability to a primary source of historical weather data that is useful in generating analogs or comparing past patterns and etc. That's also the only site I'm aware of that still generates the EPO index. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Total snowfall from the late afternoon snow squalls ended up being 2.3".. just enough to get the snowblower out and make sure it actually works properly for the next bigger storm. That's pretty decent for lake effect snow here off the Laurel's and might see some more overnight. The top of the mountain 5 miles from here had at least 3 or 4" on the ground when I went up there after the first squall around 3pm.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, Flatheadsickness said:

A gust knocked out my great grandmas dentures today in the burg Says she been tasting smoked jalapenos all day . Your one sick puppy my man.   

Listen, don't judge your nanny by what she likes to do when you're not around. Her teeth weren't lost in any outdoor wind incident, believe me. Also, I don't discriminate on age. She said fifty bucks is fifty bucks. That's a ton of scratch offs. 

Oh, and Nanny's weird shit runs in the family, if you catch my drift. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.

×
×
  • Create New...