December 2023

[NittanyWx]

Just now, brooklynwx99 said:

this pattern is about as far from last year's at it can possibly be. persistence doesn't really make any sense here

I also agree.

[Great Snow 1717]

1 minute ago, brooklynwx99 said:

this pattern is about as far from last year's at it can possibly be. persistence doesn't really make any sense here

..meaning the "results" not the specific pattern...

[Typhoon Tip]

1 hour ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

I'm not "missing the point"...your resorting to condescension when faced with resistance. Got it. 

I completely understand skepticism in the sense that long range guidance is prone to large error, so set expectations accordingly. But it needs to stop short of criticizing anyone who dares to venture towards giving a good faith effort, and anyone who sees avenues towards more wintery outcomes because it fosters a close minded approach. That is the antithesis of the type of approach that relatively poor skill at extended lead times should foster, which is an open-mind thought process. Its a weather forum...we discuss long range guidance, even it looks like it may offer wintry opportunities.

That type of mindset is why we have a brigade of 5 PPD members tossing weenies at anyone who dares to mention that forbidden four letter word...sno#. I don't believe you do or endorse that, but your post inhibits efforts to reduce that within this context IMO.

False, I'm resorting to not being involved when someone is clearly hostile.

 

[Volcanic Winter]

Just now, Great Snow 1717 said:

..meaning the "results" not the specific pattern...

At that point, isn’t it just sort of ‘hedging against snow,’ and thus not actually a forecast? 

[Typhoon Tip]

4 minutes ago, brooklynwx99 said:

this pattern is about as far from last year's at it can possibly be. persistence doesn't really make any sense here

Doesn't persistently eating shit count?

LOL

[ORH_wxman]

2 minutes ago, NittanyWx said:

I don't disagree here, but persistence is a view and sometimes it rewards a forecaster who has a healthy dose of skepticism.   It works until it doesnt.  

Yes, but when it doesn't work, it's a spectacular failure which is why it's such a bad way to forecast. Persistence is typically going to involve periods of docile weather because stormy weather doesn't typically last weeks on end.

So essentially, the strengths of persistence forecasting are doing very well when the weather is generally quiet....but it fails the most when the weather changes and becomes very unsettled, exactly the time when you want to have an accurate forecast out there.

I don't think I ever met a skilled forecaster who said they incorporate a lot of persistence into their forecasts. It's one thing to sort of hedge toward climo in many instances due to familiarity with patterns and how they affect local sensible wx, but that is definitely not the same as a mindless drone "persistence" forecast. The irony in here over the persistence argument is that New England winters typically feature decent snow, so in this case, you can't even really claim persistence is hedging toward climo for the crowd in here that keeps saying it's not going to snow.

[brooklynwx99]

Just now, Typhoon Tip said:

Doesn't persistently eating shit count?

LOL

talk about being hostile lmao

[Chrisrotary12]

Was it last December where we had a great pattern but didn't cash in?

[brooklynwx99]

32 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

It was good to see the GEFS almost completely cave to the EPS the last couple runs in the 11-15 days. If you recall a couple days ago when the GEFS didn’t look awful but they weren’t nearly as good-looking as the EPS. Now they look like the EPS. 

this is pretty clear cut

[brooklynwx99]

1 minute ago, Chrisrotary12 said:

Was it last December where we had a great pattern but didn't cash in?

yes. 8 or 9 times out of 10 you get something with this kind of pattern. got unlucky

[ORH_wxman]

1 minute ago, Chrisrotary12 said:

Was it last December where we had a great pattern but didn't cash in?

Yes. For some reason that broke a lot of people...acting like that never happened before. I could rattle off a bunch of great longwave looks that failed to produce.

[brooklynwx99]

5 minutes ago, Great Snow 1717 said:

..meaning the "results" not the specific pattern...

yeah, but the point that @ORH_wxman is trying to make is that that's not how persistence forecasting even really works

persistence forecasting implies that the pattern is persistent. the persistence isn't coming from a lack of snow (or wealth of snow)

[NittanyWx]

6 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

 

I don't think I ever met a skilled forecaster who said they incorporate a lot of persistence into their forecasts. It's one thing to sort of hedge toward climo in many instances due to familiarity with patterns and how they affect local sensible wx, but that is definitely not the same as a mindless drone "persistence" forecast. The irony in here over the persistence argument is that New England winters typically feature decent snow, so in this case, you can't even really claim persistence is hedging toward climo for the crowd in here that keeps saying it's not going to snow.

 

Persistence forecasting for persistence sake is normally not a smart way to go about things.  However, in certain patterns in certain years you can meteorologically have a good reason for going with it.  That said, it depends on the meteorological variables on the board at a given time.

 

I think there's been several years where if you took the persistence view on an extended/monthly basis it worked significantly better than trying to force a pattern change for X reason.  I personally need strong evidence to copy in a persistence view, but I've certainly had bimonthly periods where I felt the pattern was just stuck, I had no real reason to believe it would change in any meaningful way for any appreciable length of time and went with it on a longer range basis.  Yeah, there's some inherent variability in there for small windows but the big picture monthly degree day view made it somewhat negligible.

 

For the record, I'm not taking the persistence view today.

[CoastalWx]

Haven't looked due to the storm today, but a better look next week on guidance. Nice change on the GEFS.

[STILL N OF PIKE]

5 minutes ago, NittanyWx said:

 

Persistence forecasting for persistence sake is normally not a smart way to go about things.  However, in certain patterns in certain years you can meteorologically have a good reason for going with it.  That said, it depends on the meteorological variables on the board at a given time.

 

I think there's been several years where if you took the persistence view on an extended/monthly basis it worked significantly better than trying to force a pattern change for X reason.  I personally need strong evidence to copy in a persistence view, but I've certainly had bimonthly periods where I felt the pattern was just stuck, I had no real reason to believe it would change in any meaningful way for any appreciable length of time and went with it on a longer range basis.

 

For the record, I'm not taking the persistence view today.

like last January to March when models consistently under forecast SW trough strength/ orientation  10-15 days out . It made sense to forecast using persistence *as long as* the tropical forcing or whatever in the Indian Ocean wasn’t budging but Models kept being fooled . 

[ORH_wxman]

4 minutes ago, STILL N OF PIKE said:

like last January to March when models consistently under forecast SW heights 10-15 days out . It made sense to forecast using persistence if the tropical forcing or whatever in the Indian Ocean wasn’t budging but Models kept being fooled 

I don't (and most mets wouldn't) consider this to be persistence forecasting....you're using meteorological variables (tropical convection in the Pacific or IO) to form the basis of a forecast. That's actual forecasting....persistence is when you ignore any other empirical evidence and only go based off of what has happened recently.

 

We actually had a forecast competition in the meteorology department at Cornell (and many other met schools have them too) where you had to forecast the weather over the next 3 days. There was a few automated contestants....a couple of them were just MOS output and then there was one called "persistence"....I think it took the mean of the last few days to forecast the coming days. It consistently came in last place.

[Layman]

3 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

We actually had a forecast competition in the meteorology department at Cornell (and many other met schools have them too) where you had to forecast the weather over the next 3 days. There was a few automated contestants....a couple of them were just MOS output and then there was one called "persistence"....I think it took the mean of the last few days to forecast the coming days. It consistently came in last place.

That's a great idea and sounds like it would be a valuable tool.  You guys should do that here.  Maybe us regular folk could get a pool together and bet on our favorite forecasters...?  Every 3-4 days a new round gets going and a new pot is available for wagering.  Something to think about 

[STILL N OF PIKE]

5 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

I don't (and most mets wouldn't) consider this to be persistence forecasting....you're using meteorological variables (tropical convection in the Pacific) to form the basis of a forecast. That's actual forecasting....persistence is when you ignore any other empirical evidence and only go based off of what has happened recently.

 

We actually had a forecast competition in the meteorology department at Cornell (and many other met schools have them too) where you had to forecast the weather over the next 3 days. There was a few automated contestants....a couple of them were just MOS output and then there was one called "persistence"....I think it took the mean of the last few days to forecast the coming days. It consistently came in last place.

I think on a weather board with mostly amateurs some are using that idea of  persistence 

[Typhoon Tip]

35 minutes ago, brooklynwx99 said:

talk about being hostile lmao

I meant that humor in jest and in general. 

There's a saying around Boston's sports media market:  "winning is the best deodorant"

I think that essence applies here.  Folks just need to hands off the key board and back slowly away, and engage in other pastimes ... until such time as we are regionally at least appearing to 'win again'

We just seem to be in an incredible bad batting streak and it's taking it's toll on lucidity and the better form of ranker, both. 

[ORH_wxman]

Just now, STILL N OF PIKE said:

I think on a weather board with mostly amateurs some are using that idea of  persistence 

I wouldn't be all that critical of those who used that type of defensible reasoning....but most of the posts aren't of that substance. In fact, most of the posts don't have much substance at all other than it's not going to snow...sometimes with reference to "we heard this last December", as if that is really a logical scientific argument.

QGomega (who can make a decent post when he wants to) did mention the MJO the other day claiming we would stall in phase 7, but that argument isn't really going to be all that viable now since we clearly didn't stall there and we're actually already exiting out of phase 7.

 

[Typhoon Tip]

Anyway back to the weather ...

that look in the extended (Xmas to Jan 3rd ) isn't really part of the persistence

I think - you know ... I'm not sure entirely what people mean by persistence now that I think about it. This pattern we're observing, what are we comparing that to? 

Either way, that's appears to be an rather new circulation construct/response to +PNA forcing - a mode switch that's been ( ironically!) persistent in the ensemble -derived telecons from all three.  

We'll see where it goes but that's still my call for a the next winter -like potential ...well, maybe "first" is more like it.  But 28th -31st is kind of core days but could shoulder -

[brooklynwx99]

7 minutes ago, Typhoon Tip said:

I meant that humor in jest and in general. 

There's a saying around Boston's sports media market:  "winning is the best deodorant"

I think that essence applies here.  Folks just need to hands off the key board and back slowly away, and engage in other pastimes ... until such time as we are regionally at least appearing to 'win again'

We just seem to be in an incredible bad batting streak and it's taking it's told on lucidity and the better form of ranker, both. 

luckily I think the "winning again" looks like it'll occur around the end of the month. ENS are keying in on a nice pattern as the jet retracts

[40/70 Benchmark]

39 minutes ago, Typhoon Tip said:

False, I'm resorting to not being involved when someone is clearly hostile.

 

Assuming someone missed the point because they have a different POV is condescending to me. Period.

[Typhoon Tip]

I think both longer lead linear correlations with the ENSO, to go along with ... all of it ... was pointed toward a p.o.s. December - so more irony in that if things evolve better as we escape the Holiday it's sort of a "correct extended outlook" - seems that way to me.

kind of funny actually

[Typhoon Tip]

4 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Assuming someone missed the point because they have a different POV is condescending to me. Period.

You definitely evaded my point dude, and launched into this diatribe -

I just want people to test their forecast against verification - that was the only point I made. 

drop it.

if your respond along this line it'll be to empty space

[40/70 Benchmark]

18 minutes ago, Typhoon Tip said:

You definitely evaded my point dude, and launched into this diatribe -

I just want people to test their forecast against verification - that was the only point I made. 

drop it.

if your respond along this line it'll be to empty space

I did not evade your point. I said I agree with that, however, I don't feel as though piggy backing off of the post of a dude implying that anyone expecting a pattern change has not learned anything from last year was the proper context. Using last season as a learning experience while appreciating the difference between this year and last are not mutually exclusive. 

Now drop it.

[WxWatcher007]

1 hour ago, ORH_wxman said:

Yes. For some reason that broke a lot of people...acting like that never happened before. I could rattle off a bunch of great longwave looks that failed to produce.

Hindsight is 20/20 obviously but I had only punted a winter once before—that was in late January.

Playing that game with heights out west I just knew we were cooked. 

That said, this is an entirely different year with an entirely different look. We’re on schedule thus far for a solid season despite losing most of December IMO. 

[Go Kart Mozart]

The long euro looks close to something really big.  A capture hook-and-ladder would be nice.

[weatherwiz]

Certainly feeling optimistic where guidance continues to hedge moving towards the end of the month and into January. That pattern would certainly lead to the potential for some favorable storm tracks. Hopefully if we can get some coastal scenarios, even if there isn't a great deal of Arctic air available, we'll get saved by climo.

[MJO812]

Ensembles looking good moving forward