December 10-11 Storm Event

[OceanStWx]

21 minutes ago, WinterWolf said:

Always, always take the under on wind in SNE on these types of things(except coastal areas/cape/islands), and you’ll be right 99.99% of the time.  We tried to explain this for a week.  And it happened yet again. Zero wind for most all of SNE in this, which is no surprise. 

It was clear yesterday that wind was not going to be a big threat anymore. The difficulty was that most offices had already made their wind headline decisions the night or day before. Really hard to take a warning or advisory down with 24 hours left to go. 

I do think we (as in the weather industry) has a bit of a confidence problem. we are confident right now, in this snapshot in time, that something will happen - but what about when the models shift in 6 or 12 hours? Speaking for GYX now, if we had waited another 12 hours to make the wind headline decisions, we would've seen the threat slipping east.

[Damage In Tolland]

Just now, CoastalWx said:

Beer from the big win last night?

Those were the gusts I saw Around here it was 35-40.. se CT over to SE MA was 55-70

[Damage In Tolland]

1 minute ago, OceanStWx said:

It was clear yesterday that wind was not going to be a big threat anymore. The difficulty was that most offices had already made their wind headline decisions the night or day before. Really hard to take a warning or advisory down with 24 hours left to go. 

I do think we (as in the weather industry) has a bit of a confidence problem. we are confident right now, in this snapshot in time, that something will happen - but what about when the models shift in 6 or 12 hours? Speaking for GYX now, if we had waited another 12 hours to make the wind headline decisions, we would've seen the threat slipping east.

The problem they don’t seem to understand or comprehend is if this in fact tracked to our west they’d likely be sitting in the dark naked on cold metal folding chairs. When we were discussing this last week, the initial track was west and damaging. As we got closer track shifted east which took the big wind out east . I don’t see why they don’t understand this . 

[RUNNAWAYICEBERG]

2071 CT customers without power, 0.17%.  It’s going to be a very long restoration day. 

[OceanStWx]

1 minute ago, Damage In Tolland said:

The problem they don’t seem to understand or comprehend is if this in fact tracked to our west they’d likely be sitting in the dark naked on cold metal folding chairs. When we were discussing this last week, the initial track was west and damaging. As we got closer track shifted east which took the big wind out east . I don’t see why they don’t understand this . 

Oh sure, the modeling three days ago looked great for wind, but that's my point. It was just a snapshot in time. A watch made sense, but we have trouble holding watches until we're truly confident on impacts. Forecasting wind gusts in stable environments is hard enough without trying to do it with 36 hours lead time.

[Damage In Tolland]

Just now, OceanStWx said:

Oh sure, the modeling three days ago looked great for wind, but that's my point. It was just a snapshot in time. A watch made sense, but we have trouble holding watches until we're truly confident on impacts. Forecasting wind gusts in stable environments is hard enough without trying to do it with 36 hours lead time.

Just let em go . They’ll pick up on it Eventually 

[CoastalWx]

13 minutes ago, Damage In Tolland said:

Those were the gusts I saw Around here it was 35-40.. se CT over to SE MA was 55-70

As modeled ? Or verification? 

[Lava Rock]

25 minutes ago, mreaves said:

4.5" still snowing 32°/31.2°

not enough to brap on, but at least something

[SJonesWX]

right at 2" total rain. zero wind here.

boring AF

[mreaves]

1 minute ago, Lava Rock said:

not enough to brap on, but at least something

It's building though.  We didn't lose everything.

[TauntonBlizzard2013]

Generator remained in the shed 

[HIPPYVALLEY]

25 minutes ago, Damage In Tolland said:

You tell us you live in it 

No issues AIT.

[weatherwiz]

18 minutes ago, OceanStWx said:

Oh sure, the modeling three days ago looked great for wind, but that's my point. It was just a snapshot in time. A watch made sense, but we have trouble holding watches until we're truly confident on impacts. Forecasting wind gusts in stable environments is hard enough without trying to do it with 36 hours lead time.

This kinds of goes back to the discussion on modeling a few days ago, but these past 3-4 years have been awfully difficult. There have been so many times models seem locked in and there is confidence aided in ensemble support 2-3 days out and off go the headlines...but we start getting inside 30-36 hours and all of a sudden there is a back off. This has happened with multiple winter weather threats and setups similar to this. 

[OceanStWx]

1 minute ago, weatherwiz said:

This kinds of goes back to the discussion on modeling a few days ago, but these past 3-4 years have been awfully difficult. There have been so many times models seem locked in and there is confidence aided in ensemble support 2-3 days out and off go the headlines...but we start getting inside 30-36 hours and all of a sudden there is a back off. This has happened with multiple winter weather threats and setups similar to this. 

There's also a modeling cliff around 24 hours. You have guidance like the HRRR, RAP, ARW, etc that don't go much beyond that. So issuing warnings/advisories before you get to those modeling ranges can leave you wondering what happened when the damming is all of a sudden stronger than the GFS or Euro was saying.

[Layman]

17 minutes ago, OceanStWx said:

It was clear yesterday that wind was not going to be a big threat anymore. The difficulty was that most offices had already made their wind headline decisions the night or day before. Really hard to take a warning or advisory down with 24 hours left to go. 

I do think we (as in the weather industry) has a bit of a confidence problem. we are confident right now, in this snapshot in time, that something will happen - but what about when the models shift in 6 or 12 hours? Speaking for GYX now, if we had waited another 12 hours to make the wind headline decisions, we would've seen the threat slipping east.

That's a tough spot to be in and from an end user perspective, I'd much rather be forewarned of a possible event well ahead of time to prepare than have a last minute warning run up the pole.  If it doesn't pan out, I certainly find it's helpful to have an explanation why but a lot of people don't care and will likely say "They never get it right!"  Trying to predict an ever evolving atmosphere is no easy task and reasonable people understand that.  

The big takeaway for me whenever this happens is how significantly modeling/forecasting can change in a few short hours.  I went to bed last night thinking I'd be woken up with big wind gusts and a likely power outage.  Woke up this morning to essentially no wind at all, and still no wind which is fine by me.  Determining what drives confidence to lock in a prediction at X hours out from an event is very interesting to me and something I hope to get a better grasp on over time.  

12/10 0.71" of rain, max gust of 13.6mph at 11:19pm

12/11 1.44" of rain as of 8:15am, max gust of 11.4mph at 2:34am

[HIPPYVALLEY]

10 minutes ago, SJonesWX said:

right at 2" total rain. zero wind here.

boring AF

Yeah, wind never a factor here. I forgot to weight my wood tarp yesterday and it didn’t get blown off.

[HIPPYVALLEY]

Some flakes mixing in here now.

[weatherwiz]

2 minutes ago, OceanStWx said:

There's also a modeling cliff around 24 hours. You have guidance like the HRRR, RAP, ARW, etc that don't go much beyond that. So issuing warnings/advisories before you get to those modeling ranges can leave you wondering what happened when the damming is all of a sudden stronger than the GFS or Euro was saying.

Hopefully it is in the works to make some enhancement to these short-term mesos that can make them more reliable outside of 24 hours or start running them beyond 24 hours. I know the HRRR does so at 0/12 and 6/18 but if skill beyond 24 hours can be increase for these pieces of guidance that could help quite a bit in some situations (or I guess even add to the confusion).

[Flying MXZ]

2 hours ago, Logan11 said:

About 4" here now. 

I had 6" on the railing and snowboard at 5:00.  About 4.5" in the driveway.  Warm ground doing it's thing.

[OceanStWx]

Just now, weatherwiz said:

Hopefully it is in the works to make some enhancement to these short-term mesos that can make them more reliable outside of 24 hours or start running them beyond 24 hours. I know the HRRR does so at 0/12 and 6/18 but if skill beyond 24 hours can be increase for these pieces of guidance that could help quite a bit in some situations (or I guess even add to the confusion).

Ultimately that will happen. The NAM is going to go away, and the HRRR and RAP will merge into the RFS that will run out to 60 hours. 

[Brewbeer]

45 minutes ago, HIPPYVALLEY said:

How’s the CT River doing?  Damage? 

 

44 minutes ago, Damage In Tolland said:

You tell us you live in it 

[NorEastermass128]

Lots of snow reports coming out of NOVA. The Mid Atlantic changeover worked out. 

[weatherwiz]

15 minutes ago, OceanStWx said:

Ultimately that will happen. The NAM is going to go away, and the HRRR and RAP will merge into the RFS that will run out to 60 hours. 

That's exciting. 

Going to miss the NAM though had some fun times with it. 

[AstronomyEnjoyer]

1.66" of rain here. Still a little snow on the ground. Wind has picked up a little and a few flakes are starting to mix in.

[metagraphica]

1 hour ago, CoastalWx said:

Ginxy gauge going a little wild?

 

Ginxy's number seems reasonable given CoCoRah's data...  Haven't gone out to check mine...but I'd guess somewhere around 4 inches...

[CoastalWx]

1 minute ago, metagraphica said:

Ginxy's number seems reasonable given CoCoRah's data...  Haven't gone out to check mine...but I'd guess somewhere around 4 inches...

Lots of 4s. Sometimes those tippers get wild.

[wxeyeNH]

34.3F  Flipping to snow as it looks to be coming to an end.  Good call in that.  Highest wind gust during storm was 11mph but expected that.  Highest temp 40.2F.   50% of ground is still covered with snow except on my south open field which is less

[HoarfrostHubb]

Saw a couple of 70 kt wind reports... one from Blue Hill, one from outer Cape?

[FXWX]

Rain in the process of changing to a bit of wet, non-accumulating snow here in Burlington, CT...

[RUNNAWAYICEBERG]

40 minutes ago, weatherwiz said:

That's exciting. 

Going to miss the NAM though had some fun times with it. 

We all did at some point with every winter threat but modeled nam porn is exhausting, and unhealthy.