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Winter 2019-2020 Discussion


40/70 Benchmark

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  On 8/22/2019 at 8:04 PM, ORH_wxman said:

I really wish I could find it, but years and years ago, I saw a writeup on the Feb 1989 storm. It was of course in black and white PDF scanned onto some website and then printed back out. But it showed the old NGM paneled model forecast about 24 hours before the Feb 1989 storm and you could see why they were going nuts. We all remember how dry the NGM tended to be, and it was spitting out over an inch of QPF from NYC to BOS and all points in between back to ORH and HFD included. It had "the look" so to speak....not just QPF, it was thing of beauty in the midlevels with like 4 or 5 closed height contours at 850 and several at 700 even if a bit oblong.

 

Looking at the reanalysis, you can probably see what was "supposed to happen"....that powerful southern vort energy was going to really swing around the base of the trough and "wrap back northward" and tuck that storm in closer to the coast....but the whole thing kind of gets pinched off a bit too quickly.....ugh, just looking at those panels is painful bringing back the memories that are still so vivid 30 years later:

http://mp1.met.psu.edu/~fxg1/NARR/1989/us0224.php

http://mp1.met.psu.edu/~fxg1/NARR/1989/us0225.php

 

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Yeah I’ve seen that writeup too.  I’ve always said that 3/2/09 on a small scale was what was supposed to happen on 2/24/89 that didn’t.  The two setups had big similarities at 500.  They almost were as close to being identical type setups as February 83 and December 09 were.  The NWS was also very slow to react too.  The models (including the NGM) sort of started backing off the event for NYC and PHL as early as 12Z on the 23rd but it was a gradual back off to an extent.  I think by 10pm on 2/23 when the 00Z runs came out most mets knew the forecast was in big trouble but they were reluctant to totally take things down.   February 89 scarred many meteorologists to the extent I know of quite a few still working who aren’t exactly people with great memories but they recall well what happened with that event.  I almost think I’ve come across more meteorologists who remember busting 89 than March 2001.   I know someone posted here or another forum in recent years that a forecaster in the NYC or PHL office who worked the days leading up to the 89 storm was never the same after and was somewhat shy to take media calls afterwards and uneasy about dealing with winter storms.   

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  On 9/14/2019 at 2:33 PM, weathafella said:

La nada with a positive PDO could be good....

 

anomnight.9.12.2019.gif

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I like the distribution in the ENSO belt. Cold in the east and central...warmth near and just west of the dateline and then cold again once near New Guinea and westward. Could help focus convection in the right spots. 

Hopefully that spacial distribution holds fairly steady. 

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  On 9/15/2019 at 11:43 PM, powderfreak said:

Is below normal snow in Rangley still more snow than above normal in SNE?  Hard to say.

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LOL, it was just some fun trolling; there are many places up here where even snowfall one S.D. below average still means substantially more snowfall than one S.D. above average in SNE.

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  On 9/16/2019 at 2:55 AM, J.Spin said:

LOL, it was just some fun trolling; there are many places up here where even snowfall one S.D. below average still means substantially more snowfall than one S.D. above average in SNE.

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It definitely is still about expectations though. Someone in NNE who averages 100" of snow per year would be pissed off if they got 75" and had to watch Boston get 70". They would have gotten more snow than Boston but that would still be annoying because they probably are missing some pretty sizeable systems if Boston is getting 70" while they are well below average.

 

Same deal down here vs lesser snowfall areas. I'd be annoyed if I got 55-60" and watched Bridgeport CT get 50". I would feel that we were missing the brunt of the good action....it would probably mean some pretty big storms were hitting to the south of us.

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  On 9/16/2019 at 1:59 PM, ORH_wxman said:

It definitely is still about expectations though. Someone in NNE who averages 100" of snow per year would be pissed off if they got 75" and had to watch Boston get 70". They would have gotten more snow than Boston but that would still be annoying because they probably are missing some pretty sizeable systems if Boston is getting 70" while they are well below average.

 

Same deal down here vs lesser snowfall areas. I'd be annoyed if I got 55-60" and watched Bridgeport CT get 50". I would feel that we were missing the brunt of the good action....it would probably mean some pretty big storms were hitting to the south of us.

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Sounds like "entitlement" ... or a form of it. 

When/if x-y-z happens once or twice, folks marvel.  If it happens all the time, they become accustomed and part of that customization is of course the "expectation" - and hell halth no fury like ones expectations unfulfilled.

It kind of reminds me of that Larson that depicts the two tattered ragged distressed wonderers that happen upon a single palm tree hangin' over a brackish oasis while the blazin' sun's beaming mercilessly overhead ... obvious a buck-ten degrees, and the one turns head toward the other and says, " What  ... no cups?"   haha. 

People are like that. Whether it's about the neurotic abstraction of this attraction/dopamine for experiencing whatever weather, to economics, regardless of subject/aspect at hand, when folks get accustomed, it's a built in demand.  

It's a digression but I suspect it's an actual evolutionary advantage.  I mean if we think about it, when a community gets used to certain inputs into the system, and thus have adapted, that familiarization lessens uncertainty at a survival level; and since self-preservation is a baser instinct that all possess, I bet that self-righteous sort of 'annoyance' is really kind of rooted in that phenomenon. No one is going to stop and ask what is and is not unfair about getting glut all the time and having to suffer watching someone get a slice of pie once in a while.  Haha. it's actually kind of humorous, that someone could be like pissed off that they don't get to lord it over others when they can't -   

 

 

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Yeah.  All that, so long as it's a front loaded winter. 

In fact, and I realize I only win the hearts of detractors by saying the following, I hope it's 80 to 100 F from February 10th onward through next summer, but, only after having suffered a winter so extreme and severe between Halloween and that date, that even Kevin folds it in and has to abandon the social-media engagement of the weather forumverse for shear sanity.   'Course, that would require a sense of 'lost sanity' in that particular individual to begin with, which as an apparent lost cause .. that's another story. 

OH we have our dreams...  

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  On 9/16/2019 at 2:57 PM, Typhoon Tip said:

Sounds like "entitlement" ... or a form of it. 

When/if x-y-z happens once or twice, folks marvel.  If it happens all the time, they become accustomed and part of that customization is of course the "expectation" - and hell halth no fury like ones expectations unfulfilled.

It kind of reminds me of that Larson that depicts the two tattered ragged distressed wonderers that happen upon a single palm tree hangin' over a brackish oasis while the blazin' sun's beaming mercilessly overhead ... obvious a buck-ten degrees, and the one turns head toward the other and says, " What  ... no cups?"   haha. 

People are like that. Whether it's about the neurotic abstraction of this attraction/dopamine for experiencing whatever weather, to economics, regardless of subject/aspect at hand, when folks get accustomed, it's a built in demand.  

It's a digression but I suspect it's an actual evolutionary advantage.  I mean if we think about it, when a community gets used to certain inputs into the system, and thus have adapted, that familiarization lessens uncertainty at a survival level; and since self-preservation is a baser instinct that all possess, I bet that self-righteous sort of 'annoyance' is really kind of rooted in that phenomenon. No one is going to stop and ask what is and is not unfair about getting glut all the time and having to suffer watching someone get a slice of pie once in a while.  Haha. it's actually kind of humorous, that someone could be like pissed off that they don't get to lord it over others when they can't -   

 

 

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We've said it on here before...but worth repeating:

Wait until we get another 1979-1992 stretch. Then the real whining will begin. For the entire existence of these forums in one form or another, we've been in a prolific time for snowfall. Yeah we get the occasional ratter, but it is quickly "rewarded" with a juggernaut within a year or two. The real fun for the masochists will begin when the ratters are followed up by 2 or 3 more....ha.

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  On 9/16/2019 at 3:16 PM, ORH_wxman said:

We've said it on here before...but worth repeating:

Wait until we get another 1979-1992 stretch. Then the real whining will begin. For the entire existence of these forums in one form or another, we've been in a prolific time for snowfall. Yeah we get the occasional ratter, but it is quickly "rewarded" with a juggernaut within a year or two. The real fun for the masochists will begin when the ratters are followed up by 2 or 3 more....ha.

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Yeah, it’s true.  Like 2015-16 up here was an atrocious (literally I didn’t believe it could happen) 153” at 3,000ft.  Then the very next winter that same plot gets 375” and all is ok with the world.  

I’m not sure how I’d be doing if we did like 3 straight winters of 75% of normal, or even less.  And even 75% of normal is a very shitty season as we don’t have the percentage deviations of the smaller annual total areas.

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And Will/ORH is right.... maybe it’s entitlement but no matter the actual inches of snowfall it’s the jackpot syndrome that starts to take effect in any poster if one area gets the max load in several storms. 

Like 2014-15 wasn’t a bad winter by any standards outside of E.NE...it was normal to above and felt much different for anyone aside from say SE quad of New England.  I think HubbDave has said it felt like a meh 100” season because it was so close in so many events to so much more.  Same up here.  

Getting 125” in Stowe Village when Boston gets 80” means some great storms whiffed south.  You always think “what if” and are like that 125” could’ve been 160” with some NW ticks in track.

But we all spoiled.

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