March Medium/Long Range Discussion

[WinterWxLuvr]

14 minutes ago, CAPE said:

It was precarious as I recall, but everyone was sort of spoiled from the previous winter, so believing it would happen was easy. Suddenly we were on a heater where big snow events seemingly materialized with ease lol.

If my memory isn’t totally shot, we had one set of model runs that were great across the board. But I’m also thinking that they determined there were some error with model suite. I can’t remember the particulars. 
 

Also wasn’t there a clipper that immediately preceded this that also missed us?

[Eskimo Joe]

1 hour ago, WinterWxLuvr said:

I don’t know why everyone here laments that storm. Except for one batch of model runs, we were never in the game for that.

We stood the chance for a cold powder Christmas snow. That makes any missed snow sting doubly.

[CAPE]

13 minutes ago, WinterWxLuvr said:

If my memory isn’t totally shot, we had one set of model runs that were great across the board. But I’m also thinking that they determined there were some error with model suite. I can’t remember the particulars. 
 

Also wasn’t there a clipper that immediately preceded this that also missed us?

I don't recall off the top of my head. Psu I am sure can give the particulars leading up to it.

I was in Baltimore until early afternoon that day, and it 'wasn't happening'. Driving back east it became a light to moderate snow, but my yard was suppose to get a foot. That ended up maybe 10 or so miles east, so it didn't miss by much here. At least I salvaged a low end warning event.

[midatlanticweather]

Is there a Winter 2022-2023 Thread yet? This would stink if we 3-peat!

 

 

[IronTy]

22 minutes ago, midatlanticweather said:

Is there a Winter 2022-2023 Thread yet? This would stink if we 3-peat!

 

 

Ah geez!

[IronTy]

Hey I'm learning about gravity waves in my atmospheric climate textbook.   I think there was some discussion on them earlier this winter.  So much math in weather, I never knew!   Lots of fun for an EE major and applied mathematics minor.   

[CAPE]

14 minutes ago, midatlanticweather said:

Is there a Winter 2022-2023 Thread yet? This would stink if we 3-peat!

 

 

Best to read it and not make assumptions. Click bait syndrome.

The probability is pretty low based on historical data.

[anotherman]

[mappy]

1 hour ago, IronTy said:

Hey I'm learning about gravity waves in my atmospheric climate textbook.   I think there was some discussion on them earlier this winter.  So much math in weather, I never knew!   Lots of fun for an EE major and applied mathematics minor.   

all the math involved in weather is why i switched to cartography/gis my junior year  I had to take calc 101 twice before I said f-it, it's not meant to be

[Roger Ramjet]

1 hour ago, mappy said:

all the math involved in weather is why i switched to cartography/gis my junior year  I had to take calc 101 twice before I said f-it, it's not meant to be

The math is why I switched from Meteorology to Environmental Science. I started out as a Meteorological Major at Lyndon State College for three or four semesters back in 1992.

[BlizzardNole]

1 hour ago, mappy said:

all the math involved in weather is why i switched to cartography/gis my junior year  I had to take calc 101 twice before I said f-it, it's not meant to be

Wanted to major in met at FSU which specializes in hurricanes.  Calc 2 and physics convinced me to go with business instead 

[mappy]

Just now, BlizzardNole said:

Wanted to major in met at FSU which specializes in hurricanes.  Calc 2 and physics convinced me to go with business instead 

at least you made it to calc 2! I had to take statistics twice too lol 

[IronTy]

2 hours ago, mappy said:

all the math involved in weather is why i switched to cartography/gis my junior year  I had to take calc 101 twice before I said f-it, it's not meant to be

Haha, I struggled through calc 1 and then something clicked and I got 100%+ in calc 2, calc 3, diff equations, and linear algebra.  Doesn't mean I know anything about weather but I can math with the best of 'em.  

[Stormfly]

But a stronger Nina is good for tropical, right?  

Switched majors from atmospheric to electrical engineering myself.  Worked on both sides with instrumentation and meteorology.

Ti89s were fun but the real trenchwork was done with slide rules and Curtas!

[IronTy]

8 minutes ago, Stormfly said:

But a stronger Nina is good for tropical, right?  

Switched majors from atmospheric to electrical engineering myself.  Worked on both sides with instrumentation and meteorology.

Ti89s were fun but the real trenchwork was done with slide rules and Curtas!

Bruh, real engineers use HPs and RPN.  

 

Luckily my watch has a slide rule built in for those times I'm without my trusty HP.  It's surprising how often I use it for basic multiplication and division.  

[CAPE]

The math is necessary if one wants a profound understanding of how the physical world works. Ofc that's not for everyone.

I was teaching process control theory today to a diverse group(mathematically), and when I put up a slide depicting a simple system with a first order response in Laplace notation, the reactions ranged from 'that looks Greek' to 'yeah I remember seeing that once'. I have a bag of tricks for teaching the concepts even for those who are somewhat math deficient.

[IronTy]

11 minutes ago, CAPE said:

The math is necessary if one wants a profound understanding of how the physical world works. Ofc that's not for everyone.

I was teaching process control theory today to a diverse group(mathematically), and when I put up a slide depicting a simple system with a first order response in Laplace notation, the reactions ranged from 'that looks Greek' to 'yeah I remember seeing that once'. I have a bag of tricks for teaching the concepts even for those who are somewhat math deficient.

I'm just learning it myself so I can be more informed about the weather and maybe even a better poster someday.  The math itself isn't so hard, you just need to remember all the constants.   There aren't any imaginary numbers or anything so it's all pretty intuitive.  Just gotta put in the work.  Two years ago I taught myself basic astrophysics via a couple textbooks...now that was esoteric.  It's hard to get excited about something so abstract as the universe though so I'm more interested in weather.  Learning about relativity really doesn't have an impact on your daily life, but gravity waves....

[CAPE]

1 minute ago, IronTy said:

I'm just learning it myself so I can be more informed about the weather and maybe even a better poster someday.  The math itself isn't so hard, you just need to remember all the constants.   There aren't any imaginary numbers or anything so it's all pretty intuitive.  Just gotta put in the work.  Two years ago I taught myself basic astrophysics via a couple textbooks...now that was esoteric.  It's hard to get excited about something so abstract as the universe though so I'm more interested in weather.  Learning about relativity really doesn't have an impact on your daily life, but gravity waves....

If only we could approach the speed of light, I suppose we could effectively avoid aging. Ofc we would essentially have no mass so vanity concerns are kind of moot at that point lol.

Esoteric stuff but interesting.

[IronTy]

Just now, CAPE said:

If only we could approach the speed of light, I suppose we could effectively avoid aging. Ofc we would essentially have no mass so vanity concerns are kind of moot at that point lol.

Esoteric stuff but interesting.

I'm obsessed with astrophysics.  The universe is so impossibly huge and complex it drives me crazy.  You ever read Tau Zero?  A somewhat lame 70s sci Fi book but it addresses the exact relativity you bring up.  

 

And the greatest books I've ever read are the Three Body Problem trilogy.  Utterly life changing.  

[CAPE]

12 minutes ago, IronTy said:

I'm obsessed with astrophysics.  The universe is so impossibly huge and complex it drives me crazy.  You ever read Tau Zero?  A somewhat lame 70s sci Fi book but it addresses the exact relativity you bring up.  

 

And the greatest books I've ever read are the Three Body Problem trilogy.  Utterly life changing.  

I haven't read it but someone mentioned it, maybe in a YouTube video I was watching, and I did search it and read a synopsis. The only reading I do these days is either weather related or technical stuff related to work.

[Scarlet Pimpernel]

1 hour ago, IronTy said:

Bruh, real engineers use HPs and RPN.  

 

Recs for using HPs and RPN!!!  Huzzah!  I've had an old HP11-C (though had to replace it once with another one) that served me well through undergrad and grad school.  Still have it now at work and use it upon occasion.  I actually like RPN and the memory "stack" that those calculators have, can really come in handy.

[Scarlet Pimpernel]

3 hours ago, mappy said:

all the math involved in weather is why i switched to cartography/gis my junior year  I had to take calc 101 twice before I said f-it, it's not meant to be

Much respect on the cartography and GIS, especially since it seems to be something you prefer a lot more for a career!  I find the different map projections, etc. to be pretty interesting, though I don't understand much at all in how to convert one to another or how exactly they represent the spatial aspects on the globe.  My major and career has been in atmospheric science/meteorology, so I actually didn't mind the calc series I had to take, or differential equations, that sort of thing.  That said, I probably don't remember at least a certain amount of it at this point in time, LOL!!

[IronTy]

52 minutes ago, CAPE said:

I haven't read it but someone mentioned it, maybe in a YouTube video I was watching, and I did search it and read a synopsis. The only reading I do these days is either weather related or technical stuff related to work.

Just read it.  You have to suffer through 2/3 of the first book about the Chinese cultural revolution but shit gets real after that.  And by the time you hit the chapter The Singer in the third book you've gone off the deep end and you'll never see the universe the same again. 

 

Moral of the story...it's a bad idea to telegraph your presence to the universe at large. 

[IronTy]

24 minutes ago, Always in Zugzwang said:

Recs for using HPs and RPN!!!  Huzzah!  I've had an old HP11-C (though had to replace it once with another one) that served me well through undergrad and grad school.  Still have it now at work and use it upon occasion.  I actually like RPN and the memory "stack" that those calculators have, can really come in handy.

There's a company now called SwissMicros that specializes in releasing old HP calcs with modern hardware.   Their flagship is the HP-42.  Basically it uses the original HP operating system (thank you HP for releasing it) but it has an utterly gorgeous display and HW in general.  You can see the entire stack at once, it's gorgeous with a digital ink display.  

 

I have a couple HP-48GX as well, though I'm experimenting with the HP Prime now.  Awesome calc but the RPN programming support is meh. 

[Stormfly]

The calcs are too slow with larger factorials.

Smart phones particularly Apple's amazing A15 can run circles around them!  Typically dealing with n! where n may be over 50 billion.

[mappy]

2 hours ago, IronTy said:

Haha, I struggled through calc 1 and then something clicked and I got 100%+ in calc 2, calc 3, diff equations, and linear algebra.  Doesn't mean I know anything about weather but I can math with the best of 'em.  

It’s a good skill to have, being good at math. My kid loves math, which scares me because, well…I’m terrible at it. My late father studied astrophysics in his days before being drafted to Vietnam. He loved it all, eventually became a software engineer. He’d be thrilled to see my kid enjoying math lol

50 minutes ago, Always in Zugzwang said:

Much respect on the cartography and GIS, especially since it seems to be something you prefer a lot more for a career!  I find the different map projections, etc. to be pretty interesting, though I don't understand much at all in how to convert one to another or how exactly they represent the spatial aspects on the globe.  My major and career has been in atmospheric science/meteorology, so I actually didn't mind the calc series I had to take, or differential equations, that sort of thing.  That said, I probably don't remember at least a certain amount of it at this point in time, LOL!!

Thank you! GIS is a lot more than just making a pretty map. There’s the cartography side of things and having an eye for detail/balance, etc. but the data analysis involved in GIS is fun. Using data and other spatial information to solve problems and then show them in a visually appealing way is satisfying. I’m thrilled with my path, even if I didn’t end up in meteorology as I otherwise had planned.

[IronTy]

56 minutes ago, Stormfly said:

The calcs are too slow with larger factorials.

Smart phones particularly Apple's amazing A15 can run circles around them!  Typically dealing with n! where n may be over 50 billion.

You're right that smartphones can run circles around most calculators.  HP Prime has an emulator you can run on your phone (I use it from time to time) and there's also an HP48G and HP42 emulator.  But none of them address the real issue which is tactile button feedback.   Maybe the new kids don't care but there's something about the dedicated button feedback on a true calculator that can't be emulated.   

[IronTy]

33 minutes ago, mappy said:

It’s a good skill to have, being good at math. My kid loves math, which scares me because, well…I’m terrible at it. My late father studied astrophysics in his days before being drafted to Vietnam. He loved it all, eventually became a software engineer. He’d be thrilled to see my kid enjoying math lol

Thank you! GIS is a lot more than just making a pretty map. There’s the cartography side of things and having an eye for detail/balance, etc. but the data analysis involved in GIS is fun. Using data and other spatial information to solve problems and then show them in a visually appealing way is satisfying. I’m thrilled with my path, even if I didn’t end up in meteorology as I otherwise had planned.

There's never been a person who, on their deathbed, said "golly I wish I wasn't so good at math and wish I didn't become as rich as I did."

Be proud of your kid no matter what he/she settles on for a career. As long as they're familiar with the exponential function they can be rich too.  It's also a bit of a curse because you realize how unsustainable western culture is.  Sometimes it's better to be ignorant.  

 

[WinterWxLuvr]

Y’all talking about Calculus brought back memories. After taking Cal I, II, and III and making pretty easy A’s in all three, I hit Advanced Calculus with a professor who once worked at NASA and only gave a midterm and a final. Those were our only grades. Furthermore, both exams were exclusively proofs of the theorems that we had used along the way in the earlier calc courses. I think he did something like prove 6 of 8. I can’t remember. I managed to escape with a B. 
 

But by far the most challenging math course I had was abstract algebra. I would never want to do that again.

[87storms]

4 hours ago, Roger Ramjet said:

The math is why I switched from Meteorology to Environmental Science. I started out as a Meteorological Major at Lyndon State College for three or four semesters back in 1992.

I was kind of the opposite. Got my bs in math from umd which didn’t offer an undergrad in met. I actually had thought about transferring (including Lyndon state), but figured I could always consider grad down the line (and ended up in IT lol). As much I consider met as a career, I think it’s probably best as a hobby for me.