August Discussion/Obs

[dendrite]

20 minutes ago, CoastalWx said:

A lot of +2.5-3.8 type stuff in the COOPs with longer term records. 

Only +1.2 at CON. The radiators were much cooler with the abundant dry days resulting in relatively lower mins...especially early in the month. Probably explains the pit at TAN too.

[CoastalWx]

1 minute ago, dendrite said:

Only +1.2 at CON. The radiators were much cooler with the abundant dry days resulting in relatively lower mins...especially early in the month. Probably explains the pit at TAN too.

But we know that's all fake. 

[Whineminster]

10 hours ago, HIPPYVALLEY said:

Yeah, the differences in weather across the Cape are pretty amazing. I love it all from Falmouth to Provincetown and the variability in practical weather and water temperatures make it that much more special.  Wish I got to spend more time out on the islands but just don’t have family or friends out there. Lol

Problem is it's only a one season destination. Rest of the year it's depressing, minus trout fishing in the kettle ponds. Summer is great there though if you can escape the crowds.  I love the smell of dry pine forest. Just got back from 4 days at the folks place in Dennisport, water on the sound side was like a bath tub, 78 degrees I heard someone say.  Besides the chillier water the bay side is much prettier I think. 

[Baroclinic Zone]

15 minutes ago, Ginx snewx said:

But low dews made it a stunning July for summer. We tried to tell them as well. WTTTAW

 

14 minutes ago, CoastalWx said:

It got pretty darn humid, especially second half. 

I know we backyard dewin' it but my dew averaged 65.5F for the month.  

[CoastalWx]

5 minutes ago, Whineminster said:

Problem is it's only a one season destination. Rest of the year it's depressing, minus trout fishing in the kettle ponds. Summer is great there though if you can escape the crowds.  I love the smell of dry pine forest. Just got back from 4 days at the folks place in Dennisport, water on the sound side was like a bath tub, 78 degrees I heard someone say.  Besides the chillier water the bay side is much prettier I think. 

Bay side is a sauna from Brewster up. I can't believe how warm that water gets when it goes back and forth over those sun baked mud flats. 

[Baroclinic Zone]

15 minutes ago, dendrite said:

Only +1.2 at CON. The radiators were much cooler with the abundant dry days resulting in relatively lower mins...especially early in the month. Probably explains the pit at TAN too.

Just looked at TAN compared to mine.

High/Low

TAN 87/60.8 with station averages for month being 84.2/60.5.

My Davis was 84.1/65.9

[Spanks45]

Smells like summer out there this morning. I actually mowed the entire yard yesterday, first time since June 18th. 76.1⁰/70⁰

[WxWatcher007]

51 minutes ago, CoastalWx said:

Man tropics are absolutely lifeless right now.

Meanwhile, every rain shower turns into a named storm in the EPAC.

[weatherwiz]

1 hour ago, CoastalWx said:

Man tropics are absolutely lifeless right now.

I'm actually very happy for this for the sole reason there were so many hype forecasts about how crazy active it was going to be and blah blah blah b/c of the persisting Nina conditions and solely using ENSO as an indicator. At some point there will be a realization that ENSO (unless in a strong state) does not hold the weight we all once thought it did. 

[Whineminster]

32 minutes ago, CoastalWx said:

Bay side is a sauna from Brewster up. I can't believe how warm that water gets when it goes back and forth over those sun baked mud flats. 

Yeah can't say I've been to that part of the bay, only like scusset and north Dennis, but I believe it. A taste of Florida your favorite place!!

[jbenedet]

57 minutes ago, CoastalWx said:

I think Friday has a shot, and then probably more inland into Monday. I think eventually we all get some.

Said like a real politician

[40/70 Benchmark]

12 minutes ago, weatherwiz said:

I'm actually very happy for this for the sole reason there were so many hype forecasts about how crazy active it was going to be and blah blah blah b/c of the persisting Nina conditions and solely using ENSO as an indicator. At some point there will be a realization that ENSO (unless in a strong state) does not hold the weight we all once thought it did. 

We see this with respect to winter, as well.....while I think ENSO is a very prominent player in the atmosphere, there are three other factors that need to be considered:

1) There are a multitude of other variables at play in the atmosphere and its an exercise in futility to consider any one in a vacuum....there needs to be more time spent on considering how said factors will interact because this is the key to successful seasonal forecasting.

2) People tend to generalize all cold and warm ENSO events and only distinguish between intensity, when in fact its the structure of the SST anomalies that are at least as important, and probably more so.

3) As John has mused about ad nauseum, we need to be constantly re evaluating our perception of how ENSO interacts with that is an incessantly evolving globe around us.

There need to be more critical thinking utilized by the general consensus because the approach with respect to ENSO has gotten fairly lazy, especially by certain government agencies.

[CoastalWx]

2 minutes ago, jbenedet said:

Said like a real politician

Just trying to make rainfall great again.

[weatherwiz]

1 minute ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

We see this with respect to winter, as well.....while I think ENSO is a very prominent player in the atmosphere, there are three other factors at play that need to be considered:

1) There are a multitude of other variables at play in the atmosphere and its an exercise in futility to consider any one in a vacuum.

2) People tend to generalize all cold and warm ENSO events and only distinguish between intensity, when in fact its the structure of the SST anomalies that are at least as important, and probably more so.

3) As John has mused about ad nauseum, we need to be constantly re evaluated our perception of how ENSO interacts with that is an incessantly evolving globe around us.

There need to be more critical thinking utilized by the general consensus because the approach with respect to ENSO has gotten fairly lazy, especially by certain government agencies.

Well-stated. Wish so many more had this thought process/understanding. Big reason why I'm a huge fan of your outlooks/discussions. You get very deep and thorough and don't loosen the jeans b/c one parameter is of liking. 

[weatherwiz]

1 minute ago, CoastalWx said:

Just trying to make rainfall great again.

I think Vegas has had more rain in the past week than most of us have had in the past few months 

[MJOatleast7]

9 minutes ago, Whineminster said:

Yeah can't say I've been to that part of the bay, only like scusset and north Dennis, but I believe it. A taste of Florida your favorite place!!

Breakwater Beach n Brewster,man...over a mile of exposed sand at low tide, completely covered over at high tide. That's a lot of sun-baked real estate to warm the incoming water. It's a wonder we don't get tidal bores there like in Nova Scotia.

[dendrite]

59 minutes ago, CoastalWx said:

But we know that's all fake. 

All real to me this time of year. The lower dews make the heat bearable and the cooler nights mean window fans over the AC. 

[weatherwiz]

2 minutes ago, dendrite said:

All real to me this time of year. The lower dews make the heat bearable and the cooler nights mean window fans over the AC. 

I don't like window fans. One time several years ago the window fans sucked in all the pollen and my bedroom looked like someone emptied 1,000 green pixie sticks all over

[Brian5671]

24 minutes ago, weatherwiz said:

I'm actually very happy for this for the sole reason there were so many hype forecasts about how crazy active it was going to be and blah blah blah b/c of the persisting Nina conditions and solely using ENSO as an indicator. At some point there will be a realization that ENSO (unless in a strong state) does not hold the weight we all once thought it did. 

It could get busy-seen some talk about MJO phase 2 getting things going...

[Typhoon Tip]

3 hours ago, SouthCoastMA said:

the next 6 days look dry in eastern areas, shocking. Potentially looking wet afterwards

Not entirely sold... There are two possibilities for Friday - one produces local near headline rain results, the other is more scattered...  

That day could turn out ripely set up for repeater downpours after a morning temperature burst ...set up by the previous big heat Thursday.  The day is unilaterally modeled to fester DPs to nearly 75, with high initial surface temperatures .. Sun will be important.  IF so, there's a front paralleling the mid level stream lines ...pressing S and stalling in that on-going heat/DP morass.  It could train CBs along fractal designated routes - who knows where that would be.   The 2-m products are banging 97 between HFD and ASH axis, but I think that's over done...  What are the convection temperatures? 

That's one school...

The other school is that the front is over manifested in the guidance...so less S and the axis ends up farther N and weaker at that... As a separate sort of plague, we could still run into a neggie feedback due to antecedent dry summer 'sucking' the moisture back out of the column - we've seen something like this on a couple of occasions already...where 70 DPs at dawn vanished in waving trees blown through by arid hot wind. I think it was all the way down to 58 on hot Sunday July 24 when Logan was 100 as was metro west. 

This would have to correct pretty fast in the guidance though, as we are at D4 and they agree - it's probably time to expect a quasi -stationary boundary falling asleep through region by Friday afternoon.   

[WxWatcher007]

Idk about NOAA @weatherwiz, but I love CSU and I think they look much deeper than general ENSO. To me they’re an example of people that do it right.

There are always areas where I can personally improve with regard to tropical forecasting and understanding, but I think having a more granular understanding of the structure of ENSO/how it evolves, and a greater sense of how things like wave breaking and the MJO are forecasted would be valuable. 

But I work virtually every day.  
 

Honestly there are times I wish I could do a wholesale career change and go all in studying tropical meteorology, but I guess I’m where I’m supposed to be..

[weatherwiz]

Just now, Brian5671 said:

It could get busy-seen some talk about MJO phase 2 getting things going...

Certainly possible, the MJO can certainly be a precursor at times but we're going to need to see some big changes across the Atlantic Basin as well though. Not saying this season is a bust, we're still about 5-6 weeks away from peak climo anyways and things can always get active in a hurry. The MJO is also a horrific pain to really forecast lol.

[weatherwiz]

1 minute ago, WxWatcher007 said:

Idk about NOAA @weatherwiz, but I love CSU and I think they look much deeper than general ENSO. To me they’re an example of people that do it right.

There are always areas where I can personally improve with regard to tropical forecasting and understanding, but I think having a more granular understanding of the structure of ENSO/how it evolves, and a greater sense of how things like wave breaking and the MJO are forecasted would be valuable. 

But I work virtually every day.  
 

Honestly there are times I wish I could do a wholesale career change and go all in studying tropical meteorology, but I guess I’m where I’m supposed to be..

This really hits the nail on the head. This is very important, not just with tropical meteorology, but can be applied to long-range forecasting as well. The structure and evolution of features is way more important than phase (and even at times, strength) but getting to that understanding can be quite difficult just because of how complex the atmosphere is. 

Wave breaking is rather fascinating. It's really cool to look at a world map during the fall/winter months and see wave breaking in action and how it helps to shape the downstream pattern. The MJO is also highly intriguing. While it gets used heavily in medium-to-early long range forecasting and especially with tropical I think sometimes it gets too much weight put on it...and I say this because it is not an easy feature to forecast. Since it is pretty much tied into convection it makes it very vulnerable. We've seen plenty of times before where even if models are in strong agreement with its evolution the verification still ends up way off. 

[TauntonBlizzard2013]

What happened to the wet look towards the weekend? We desperately need rain here. More than .12 every 10 days 

[QCD17]

28 minutes ago, MJOatleast7 said:

Breakwater Beach n Brewster,man...over a mile of exposed sand at low tide, completely covered over at high tide. That's a lot of sun-baked real estate to warm the incoming water. It's a wonder we don't get tidal bores there like in Nova Scotia.

Awesome place.  I was way out at low tide fishing for stripers there back when I didn't have kids and fished all the time.  We had a nice school swimming all around us.  Turned around to head back and saw that the tide had completely backfilled behind me.  I couldn't find the high ground path to get back.  Had to cinch up my waders to avoid getting filled up, as the water was over the top of them in some places.  Things got very scary very fast.

[Ginx snewx]

1 hour ago, Baroclinic Zone said:

 

I know we backyard dewin' it but my dew averaged 65.5F for the month.  

We dry

[40/70 Benchmark]

24 minutes ago, WxWatcher007 said:

Idk about NOAA @weatherwiz, but I love CSU and I think they look much deeper than general ENSO. To me they’re an example of people that do it right.

There are always areas where I can personally improve with regard to tropical forecasting and understanding, but I think having a more granular understanding of the structure of ENSO/how it evolves, and a greater sense of how things like wave breaking and the MJO are forecasted would be valuable. 

But I work virtually every day.  
 

Honestly there are times I wish I could do a wholesale career change and go all in studying tropical meteorology, but I guess I’m where I’m supposed to be..

NOAA/CPC is terrible with respect to ENSO....very broad brush approach that exudes laziness and complacency. I remember in my 4th outlook leading up to the 2017-2018 season, I specifically pointed out their tame outlook and made a mockery of it by explicitly stating why it would fail...the character of la nina was polar opposite to that of the one the prior season (2016-2017), despite being of comparable intensity. 

Four months later we got the "All Hell Breaks Loose" March.

[weatherwiz]

Wouldn't dewpoint be a more appropriate metric vs. RH during the summer? 

[Typhoon Tip]

28 minutes ago, weatherwiz said:

Certainly possible, the MJO can certainly be a precursor at times but we're going to need to see some big changes across the Atlantic Basin as well though. Not saying this season is a bust, we're still about 5-6 weeks away from peak climo anyways and things can always get active in a hurry. The MJO is also a horrific pain to really forecast lol.

Fwiw

• The MJO signal weakened through mid-July due to destructive interference with the La Niña
base state.
• Dynamical model RMM forecasts a continued weak MJO signal in the coming two weeks, and
there is a lot of uncertainty regarding whether convective activity will continue to propagate
eastward in the coming weeks.
• The Atlantic basin continues to be quiet with regard to tropical cyclone (TC) development, while
the East Pacific continues to be active, possibly due to Rossby wave activity enhancing
convection.

[40/70 Benchmark]

19 minutes ago, weatherwiz said:

This really hits the nail on the head. This is very important, not just with tropical meteorology, but can be applied to long-range forecasting as well. The structure and evolution of features is way more important than phase (and even at times, strength) but getting to that understanding can be quite difficult just because of how complex the atmosphere is. 

Wave breaking is rather fascinating. It's really cool to look at a world map during the fall/winter months and see wave breaking in action and how it helps to shape the downstream pattern. The MJO is also highly intriguing. While it gets used heavily in medium-to-early long range forecasting and especially with tropical I think sometimes it gets too much weight put on it...and I say this because it is not an easy feature to forecast. Since it is pretty much tied into convection it makes it very vulnerable. We've seen plenty of times before where even if models are in strong agreement with its evolution the verification still ends up way off. 

The forecasting follies with respect to the MJO are a microcosm of why so many forecasts mishandle ENSO....if you think about it, this makes sense because why is ENSO even important? It is ONE OF the main determinants that dictate the origin, placement and ultimate evolution of the MJO.

The fact of the matter is that like ENSO events, not all MJO events are created equally, and it is a knowledge of the interaction with other ambient atmospheric variables that informs our knowledge of this....IE Just as one weak la nina event may be east based, and impacts the MJO quite differently then a west based (modoki event), it may also be more or less coupled with the atmosphere. This is also applicable to MJO waves in that you need to also study the ambient hemispheric landscape in order to determine how coherent the MJO wave will be, which is to say what other factors will attenuate or augment its impact on the pattern.