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NYC/PHL Dec 26-27 Potential - Part 6


dryslotted

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At what point do we stop looking at these models and go to purenowcastimg? I know NAM is considered the better "now" model by many, but when do the GFS, euro et al become pointless die to timing?

Never, really - in fact, as one gets closer to the event the models get better and better, as they have less time for the various errors in assumptions/initial conditions/boundary conditions/data input etc. to propagate out until the actual storm event. Think of it this way: almost every model should give nearly 100% accuracy for forecasted conditions 5 minutes into the future, since the future state is so similar to the current state. Put mathematically, the set of non-linear partial differential equations governing the various physicochemical processes occurring in the atmosphere only has to move forward a small time increment, making the range of possible solutions [actually, numerical solutions are the only way to solve these sets of equations, since analytical solutions are simply impossible] much smaller than for a forecast 24 hours into the future.

This major decrease in the forecast error bars (think of a hurricane's trajectory cone, which gets wider and wider as one moves further into the future) as one gets closer to the event is the reason why people have to put a lot more stock in tonight's 00Z runs than they were able to in the "blizzard" runs from 2 days ago. If the Euro is on board and HPC doesn't come up with any reason to throw out tonight's model runs, then I would think we're clearly ready to lock and load on this event (i.e., significant snows are nearly a sure thing for the DC-Boston corridor; blizzard/snowmageddon conditions are not yet a sure thing) and it would then take a nearly unprecedented total model meltdown scenario, a la March 2001, for this to be a complete miss. Of course, I'm not a meteorologist, so I could be off, but I do know a thing or two about numerical models, physical chemistry, and mass, heat and momentum transfer...

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Never, really - in fact, as one gets closer to the event the models get better and better, as they have less time for the various errors in assumptions/initial conditions/boundary conditions/data input etc. to propagate out until the actual storm event. Think of it this way: almost every model should give nearly 100% accuracy for forecasted conditions 5 minutes into the future, since the future state is so similar to the current state. Put mathematically, the set of non-linear partial differential equations governing the various physicochemical processes occurring in the atmosphere only has to move forward a small time increment, making the range of possible solutions [actually, numerical solutions are the only way to solve these sets of equations, since analytical solutions are simply impossible] much smaller than for a forecast 24 hours into the future.

This major decrease in the forecast error bars (think of a hurricane's trajectory cone, which gets wider and wider as one moves further into the future) as one gets closer to the event is the reason why people have to put a lot more stock in tonight's 00Z runs than they were able to in the "blizzard" runs from 2 days ago. If the Euro is on board and HPC doesn't come up with any reason to throw out tonight's model runs, then I would think we're clearly ready to lock and load on this event (i.e., significant snows are nearly a sure thing for the DC-Boston corridor; blizzard/snowmageddon conditions are not yet a sure thing) and it would then take a nearly unprecedented total model meltdown scenario, a la March 2001, for this to be a complete miss. Of course, I'm not a meteorologist, so I could be off, but I do know a thing or two about numerical models, physical chemistry, and mass, heat and momentum transfer...

Awesome post. Thank you.

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