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February the climo snow month


Ginx snewx
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3 minutes ago, moneypitmike said:

Enjoy the mask-free living!

Lol...we’ll mask up in public.   That’s not going away for awhile I suspect.  But more importantly we’ll be caring for relatives age 90.  But back on topic-hopefully good snow between now and  the 25th.  

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25 minutes ago, Typhoon Tip said:

I've seen it be 59 in napey spring "fake warmth" spring sun at noon in early April, and mixing with snow at 6 pm that same afternoon.

Last May we had a day up here where it was around 60F at like 11:30am and I was hiking with the dog in shorts...then had 2” of paste fall that evening while cooking dinner in an isothermal CCB.

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6 minutes ago, weathafella said:

Cooking hot dogs right?

For sure, weenies everywhere that night.  Was only supposed to snow above like 2,000ft but then 0.20”/hr water for like 3-4 hours had it flash over to heavy wet snow straight to the valley floor.  That was a textbook May dynamic cooling event last spring up this way.

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14 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

For sure, weenies everywhere that night.  Was only supposed to snow above like 2,000ft but then 0.20”/hr water for like 3-4 hours had it flash over to heavy wet snow straight to the valley floor.  That was a textbook May dynamic cooling event last spring up this way.

My daughter is giving me shit about how my good snowpack sucks vs Vermont.   A weenie is emerging....

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49 minutes ago, Damage In Tolland said:

Why doesn’t that have any snow along the water?

That's a good question.

The algorithm takes into account "gauge losses" due to melting, compaction, etc... caused by the land-air interface. If land isn't categorized by the model at a given grid point, 0/NaN values will be produced by the algorithm. That's why there are 0/NaN values along the coastline. The (very course) GFS categorizes those grid points/locations as "water." 

The website post-processes those maps from the GFS by, snowfall(t)=abs(snow_depth(t)-snow_depth(t-1))+snowfall(t-1) - t==time.

snow_depth is calculated within the model though. For the coding/scripting weenies: https://github.com/wrf-model/WRF/blob/f311cd5e136631ebf3ebaa02b4b7be3816ed171f/phys/module_sf_noah_seaice.F [via WRF] - search for "SNOWH." I'm assuming the GFS uses the same subroutine.

For the non coding/scripting weenies: https://www.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/ftpref/wntsc/H&H/snow/AndersonSnow17.pdf - The "new snowfall" calculation is denoted by equations 2.a though 3... It's different than what most people are accustomed to on this site. It calculates snowfall by diagnosing snow density.

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30 minutes ago, Lava Rock said:

IDK, local met says maybe rain Friday and quieter pattern after next week. Doesn't sound rockin to me.

Sent from my Pixel 4a using Tapatalk
 

I didn't say perfect, NNE as a whole though. Looks good for many up there. Similar to when SNE has a good stretch, it may not always include S or SE areas.

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17 minutes ago, MegaMike said:

That's a good question.

The algorithm takes into account "gauge losses" due to melting, compaction, etc... caused by the land-air interface. If land isn't categorized by the model at a given grid point, 0/NaN values will be produced by the algorithm. That's why there are 0/NaN values along the coastline. The (very course) GFS categorizes those grid points/locations as "water." 

The website post-processes those maps from the GFS by, snowfall(t)=abs(snow_depth(t)-snow_depth(t-1))+snowfall(t-1) - t==time.

snow_depth is calculated within the model though. For the coding/scripting weenies: https://github.com/wrf-model/WRF/blob/f311cd5e136631ebf3ebaa02b4b7be3816ed171f/phys/module_sf_noah_seaice.F [via WRF] - search for "SNOWH." I'm assuming the GFS uses the same subroutine.

For the non coding/scripting weenies: https://www.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/ftpref/wntsc/H&H/snow/AndersonSnow17.pdf - The "new snowfall" calculation is denoted by equations 2.a though 3... It's different than what most people are accustomed to on this site. It calculates snowfall by diagnosing snow density.

That’s very interesting. Is it a possibility that they are trying to show a rain /snow line in a very rudimentary fashion?

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40 minutes ago, Damage In Tolland said:

That’s very interesting. Is it a possibility that they are trying to show a rain /snow line in a very rudimentary fashion?

No. Public websites keep snowfall calculations simple because 1) scripting Cobb's/Dube's algorithm is too computationally expensive 2) in the end, it doesn't matter which algorithm you utilize for forecasts or 3) they can't write the script.

Besides what I wrote above regarding positive snow depth, 10:1 ratios is easier to compute:

a) If they use a precipitation type algorithm (csnowsfc is boolean wrt snow-> 1==snow, 0==not snow): snowfall = csnowsfc*LWE*10. For snowfall, precipitation type algorithms perform well... Diagnosing mixed precipitation type is problematic though. Here's an article that provides results using "observed" data: https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/apme/55/8/jamc-d-16-0044.1.xm. Go to Table 1.

b) If they use microphysics scheme output (SR is continuous -> from 1==all frozen precipitation to 0==no frozen precipitation): SR*LWE*10. You occasionally see websites that state, "this product may include sleet..." They likely used this methodology since SR is a function of what a microphysics scheme diagnoses (mass/concentration of rain, ice, snow, etc...). If it diagnoses graupel, sleet, and hail, SR will include graupel, sleet, and hail as well. It depends on the microphysics scheme. Most modeling systems use Thompson's microphysics schemes which means rain, ice (sleet), snow, and graupel are included in SR.

Websites should be more public about their methodologies. Some are vague as He!!. Another pet-peeve of mine, Pivotal provides Kuchera's algorithm for PAID members. Why? Nobody published a paper on its accuracy and I'm sure other SLR algorithms perform better. 

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