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WxChallenge 2010-11


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the NWS out in Seattle did a great job highlighting the fact that the westerly flow at 700mb would effectively produce a rain shadow over the Seattle area.... we got very limited precipitation despite the modeling having well over a quarter of an inch at KSEA. Score one for the NWS and anybody that went low with precip the last two days.

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  • 2 weeks later...

OK WTF with the low in KRIC last night?

It got down to 33 with a steady southerly flow last night... sure the cloud were clear, but the winds at around 6-8 mph should have prevented the atmosphere from decoupling. This was a good 5-7 degrees colder than MOS, USL, and any other model guidance.

Any explanations... mets... was somehow some CAA advected into KRIC?

btw its already up to 65 lol!

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OK WTF with the low in KRIC last night?

It got down to 33 with a steady southerly flow last night... sure the cloud were clear, but the winds at around 6-8 mph should have prevented the atmosphere from decoupling. This was a good 5-7 degrees colder than MOS, USL, and any other model guidance.

Any explanations... mets... was somehow some CAA advected into KRIC?

btw its already up to 65 lol!

Yeah I saw that...Gonna be some bad scores today :yikes:

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OK WTF with the low in KRIC last night?

It got down to 33 with a steady southerly flow last night... sure the cloud were clear, but the winds at around 6-8 mph should have prevented the atmosphere from decoupling. This was a good 5-7 degrees colder than MOS, USL, and any other model guidance.

Any explanations... mets... was somehow some CAA advected into KRIC?

btw its already up to 65 lol!

Massive inversion layer. One thing that caught me off guard was the SFC pressure. The modeled SFC pressure was 1018 to 1020, the actual was 1025, that extra 5 mb allowed that sharp inversion layer to decrease the temperature.

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Massive inversion layer. One thing that caught me off guard was the SFC pressure. The modeled SFC pressure was 1018 to 1020, the actual was 1025, that extra 5 mb allowed that sharp inversion layer to decrease the temperature.

Cool... thanks for the explanation. It certainly caught me off guard too since I put 39 for the low axesmiley.png

Anyway its day 5 now for KRIC. I feel like its a pretty pivotal day considering we will be dealing with precipitation for the first time, and a strong non-diurnal temperature gradient perhaps. Should make for one of the most interesting forecasts we have made in the challenge thus far.

I put 38/27/15/.08

Looks like things are already cooling off quickly!

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Cool... thanks for the explanation. It certainly caught me off guard too since I put 39 for the low axesmiley.png

Anyway its day 5 now for KRIC. I feel like its a pretty pivotal day considering we will be dealing with precipitation for the first time, and a strong non-diurnal temperature gradient perhaps. Should make for one of the most interesting forecasts we have made in the challenge thus far.

I put 38/27/15/.08

Looks like things are already cooling off quickly!

The evening low is gonna kill me tonight. I had 42 for the high so that will be close, but it looks to dip into the 20s tonight which I didn't catch with my fcst of 32. :arrowhead: I took the NAM with .09" precip so that looks to work out well.

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I put .17 for today (2/22) I thought that stuff was going to make it over the mountains. NWS had .18 or something like that. A tiny bit of snow working its way in to RIC in the next 2-3 hours. May bump the totals another .02 or .03. Also lays down snow, which will crash the temps, and fast.

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Anyone else getting screwed over the the lows at KSUX the past couple days? Got down to 5 degrees this morning! Lowest forecast model I saw was 11 and NWS went 10.

It was obvious that MOS was going to bust badly last night when I saw how strong the high pressure was. Low level CAA is almost always underestimated by MOS. I put 9 and since that was way on the low side of consensus, I ended up doing pretty good weight_lift.gif

Now Monday was just a huge bust day overall... lowest score was 8.5! High was 7 degrees above consensus and the low was 6 degrees on the low side of consensus gun_bandana.gif don't mention that the winds were 11 knots above consensus! Just a crazy hard forecast day.

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Looks like we may have to go old school and throw out all MOS output as it has been useless at this site so far. That shallow arctic airmass over the Dakotas has not been handled well by the models at all. You really have to figure out where the low-level flow will be from and then get a look at the temperature at upstream stations. Went below MOS with 19 tonight by 06Z and that looking like it may still be a few degrees too high. More fun next week with what may turn out to be a blizzard late Tuesday into Wednesday. To tell the truth, I'm really going to miss forecasting for this site despite the struggle.

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It is quite fitting that everyone s*cks at KSUX

Incredibly high totals for everyone after 3 days

The best forecaster had a point total of:

Day 1: 8.5 points

Day 2: 3.5 points

Day 3: 5.0 points

To get a good idea of the difficulty, the point total after 3 days for the best forecaster was 21.5 points. After 8 days in Brownsville during the first city of the WxChallenge, the best forecaster had a score of 12.5 points.

Its safe to say that this city is going to be a huge normalized score city, meaning there will be a major shift in those who will be in the top 64 for the tournament by the end of this city.

Looks like we may have to go old school and throw out all MOS output as it has been useless at this site so far. That shallow arctic airmass over the Dakotas has not been handled well by the models at all. You really have to figure out where the low-level flow will be from and then get a look at the temperature at upstream stations. Went below MOS with 19 tonight by 06Z and that looking like it may still be a few degrees too high. More fun next week with what may turn out to be a blizzard late Tuesday into Wednesday. To tell the truth, I'm really going to miss forecasting for this site despite the struggle.

I'm loving this city so far, because it really shows how dependent a lot of the forecasters are on MOS when it has been nearly useless. Add in the fact that Sioux City, IA does not have snow pack currently, but there is a strong snow-pack only about 20-30 miles away. It has amplified the temperature ranges, because northerly flow had advected that super-cold air over the snow-pack, and the southerly flow advects much warmer air just to the south that does not get modified since the snowpack does not exist over Sioux City.

This explains why Sioux City was able to get to 5 degrees with that northerly flow coming direcly off of regions where the snow-pack amplified the temperature downward. At the same respect, it is still able to take advantage of the strong WAA that has occurred on both Monday and Thursday, getting into the 50's both days. Without knowledge of the local snow-pack nearby but not over the airport, MOS has struggled at best to make an acceptable forecast.

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The best forecaster had a point total of:

Day 1: 8.5 points

Day 2: 3.5 points

Day 3: 5.0 points

To get a good idea of the difficulty, the point total after 3 days for the best forecaster was 21.5 points. After 8 days in Brownsville during the first city of the WxChallenge, the best forecaster had a score of 12.5 points.

Its safe to say that this city is going to be a huge normalized score city, meaning there will be a major shift in those who will be in the top 64 for the tournament by the end of this city.

I'm loving this city so far, because it really shows how dependent a lot of the forecasters are on MOS when it has been nearly useless. Add in the fact that Sioux City, IA does not have snow pack currently, but there is a strong snow-pack only about 20-30 miles away. It has amplified the temperature ranges, because northerly flow had advected that super-cold air over the snow-pack, and the southerly flow advects much warmer air just to the south that does not get modified since the snowpack does not exist over Sioux City.

This explains why Sioux City was able to get to 5 degrees with that northerly flow coming direcly off of regions where the snow-pack amplified the temperature downward. At the same respect, it is still able to take advantage of the strong WAA that has occurred on both Monday and Thursday, getting into the 50's both days. Without knowledge of the local snow-pack nearby but not over the airport, MOS has struggled at best to make an acceptable forecast.

Excellent point about the snow cover. Temperature forecast should remain interesting throughout next week. If things verify, there will be a very healthy snow cover (12") just about everywhere with the storm on Tuesday and Wednesday. however there could be some mixing issues just south of Sioux City so the snow cover gradient could move from just north to just south of the area. Would not be surprised at all the see more huge bust from MOS next week. The great thing about forecasting for a difficult city though is that if you nail it you are rewarded with huge gains in the rankings.

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  • 3 weeks later...

What the crap are you guys running over there at PSu blazer? :P like friggen microscale models, or picking up on trends? haha. You PSU peeps keep destroying these cities.:arrowhead:

as an alum from penn state, i can humbly say this much: there's a reason why we're that good. some of the best instructors, seeing how many times you get screwed on forecasts locally you know how to counter-act almost everything, and it's a tradition that was there before i graduated that lives on to this day. go penn state.

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as an alum from penn state, i can humbly say this much: there's a reason why we're that good. some of the best instructors, seeing how many times you get screwed on forecasts locally you know how to counter-act almost everything, and it's a tradition that was there before i graduated that lives on to this day. go penn state.

Where did you get your avatar?

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I talked to my professor about doing this next year. We've been doing something similar within our freshman MEA 214 class for RDU and I find it to be a lot of fun. I am leading the (35-40 person) class at the moment (just a few points behind our professor), but I reckon that the competition level increases dramatically in the WxChallenge itself.

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What the crap are you guys running over there at PSu blazer? :P like friggen microscale models, or picking up on trends? haha. You PSU peeps keep destroying these cities.:arrowhead:

Thanks for nice comments. Yeah, I've been doing pretty well along with some of the other psu folks. Just been killing it. Mostly picking up on trends. Btw, the Friday forecast looks to be interesting with the coastal low. Good luck on the rest of Boston and Maybe we'll meet in the tourney! :popcorn:

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Ok folks Boston is here!

What do you guys think about the chance for sea-breeze tomorrow? NWS mentions it, but I'm wondering if the 6-8 knot WNW wind might be enough to keep the seabreeze at bay (Pun intended devilsmiley.gif) until the late afternoon, after the high has been reached. I'm on the fence right now, but I'm thinking low 50's look good tomorrow.

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