Tag: Precipitation

I Miss A Lot. I Don’t Miss Winter.

Lesean McCoy in the snow

Before we moved Helaine and I talked about this day. We discussed sitting at home, seeing winter on TV. Boy did we see it today!

Detroit was playing the Eagles at in Philly. Light snow was forecast. Nearly all of it would begin after two.

In reality heavy snow fell and started hours early. The game started with the field covered and Fox cameras unable to see much detail on-the-field. Offically at PHL it was heavy snow, &#188 mile visibility and a temperature of 27&#176 (19&#176 wind chill).

Let’s pause while I tell the Philadelphia meteorologists, I feel your pain. I’ve been on the wrong end of a bad forecast. It’s a horrendous feeling.

At first I thought it was really cool to see football played in a near blizzard. Then I realized it had removed most skill from the game! Kicks didn’t roll. Passes didn’t carry. Runners couldn’t make cuts.

Detroit’s first touchdown was followed by a two point conversion. No way a kicker would try the point after.

There was some satisfaction sitting here in SoCal. I won’t lie. My apologies. I feel your pain too.

The weather here wasn’t perfect, or even good. We were in the mid-50&#176s all day with mainly cloudy skies.

WPC Probabilistic Winter Precipitation GuidanceWe’ll get to 70&#176 before this week is out with no precipitation in the forecast. That makes it easier to take.

Back in Hamden the next twenty four hours will be an unavoidable pain in-the-ass. Snow, sleet, freezing rain. I don’t miss that.

I miss lots about Connecticut. I don’t miss winter.

Forecast: Long Duration Gloom

Flowers and plants will grow. We’ll be a little less happy. No, actually we’ll be downright depressed.

Part of my morning ritual is looking at weather data so I can get up to speed. There’s a lot of green on this chart. I don’t like what I see!

First the good news. During the warm season it’s unusual to have all-day rain. Unfortunately it’s not uncommon to have long duration gloom.

The image at the top of this entry is a screencap from BUFKIT–the Swiss Army Knife of weather. The weather model is the GFS, our go-to model when looking out a week. BUFKIT is read right-to-left, so today is on the far right side and the upcoming week spreads out to the left.

Those vertical bars of green represent rain. At the moment each six hour block through Saturday has at least a tiny bit of rain.

Flowers and plants will grow. We’ll be a little less happy. No, actually we’ll be downright depressed.

Here’s What I Don’t Miss From Work

Yes, the models are consistently inconsistent and it’s enough to drive me nuts… or it was.

Do I miss forecasting the weather on TV? Absolutely! Do I miss snowfall forecasts? Nope.

Of all the different types of weather I forecast snowfall was the type most consistently misforecast! I’m not just talking about me. No snow forecast by anyone is ever completely right!

Maybe I’m being too hard on myself and my colleagues? There’s a lot of utility in snow forecasts. One reason schools are closed more now is because decisions can be made with confidence. We mostly hit the target. We never get the bullseye.

When snow forecasts are really wrong there’s nowhere to hide!

Here’s what we do reasonably well:

  • precipitation type
  • start time
  • wind
  • temperature

Here’s what we do poorly:

  • precipitation amount

“You said six to ten inches and and I got four!” Trust me, I’ve heard that angry sentence more than once.

Shoot me. It happens.

A snowfall forecast is actually a forecast on top of a forecast on top of a forecast. If any of the intermediate calculations are off everything else is off too. That’s bad news because forecasts can change radically over a short period of time.

The good news is we don’t see cars stranded like they were in 1978 because even if we don’t get totals right there are few storms (and no large storms) that appear as surprises.

To most of us there’s no difference in our lives between one inch and four inches. There is no difference between three inches and eight inches. Sure there’s more to plow, but whatever stops for eight inches has mostly stopped for two.

I used to say all the slippery’s in the first quarter inch. It’s true.

At the top of this entry is a time-series plot courtesy of Dr. Robert Hart from FSU and his coolwx.com website. It’s a breakdown of the prediction from Monday’s 2:00 PM EDT (1800Z) NAM computer run. The NAM says New Haven will start seeing snow Wednesday afternoon with the mainly light snow continuing through the night. The scale on the left side shows water equivalent as opposed to snow totals.

By the time the snow ends Thursday this model says we’ll see about .7″ of water converted to snow. At a typical 10:1 that’s seven inches of snow.

Of course no snow is really typical and warmer ground and light snow at the onset will probably melt the first flakes that fall. Beyond that when snow falls for any length of time it tends to settle, so it takes more than five inches of snow to get five inches of snow! That makes the .7″ academic, not practical.

I mentioned this is from the 1800Z run. As I was typing the next run, the 0000Z came in with around 1/5 the snow!

Yes, the models are consistently inconsistent and it’s enough to drive me nuts… or it was.

Here’s the takeaway. There will probably be some snow on the ground when you wake Thursday. There will be delays if schools think they can wait it out… and they probably can.

The last word on this system hasn’t been written. In some ways I’m happy to be an outside observer.

Back In Connecticut–We Left The Warmth Behind!

Driving in we noticed limbs normally well above car top level now brushing up against the roof of Helaine’s SUV. A pine tree in our front yard is “U” shaped

This morning while waiting in line to check our bags I overheard a woman complaining about the heat! She is invited to join me tonight back home in Connecticut. Too much heat is not a problem.

Our flight landed an hour late tonight. Even on-time we would have missed the freezing rain Connecticut saw for a good part of the day. We landed on a wet runway, but the taxiways were crusty, slushy snow.

Even without experiencing the ice first hand there is evidence I can see. Driving in we noticed limbs normally well above car top level now brushing up against the roof of Helaine’s SUV. A pine tree in our front yard is “U” shaped.

I took these two photos on my front steps. There’s a small ornamental bush just off to the left. Tonight it’s encased in ice!

The Bane Of My Existence: Snow

We probably don’t have much more than a quarter inch right now. What’s the bet that delays some schools?

It’s snowing right now. I’ve seen it with my own two eyes. The snow’s light, sort of like dandruff from Mother Nature. It’s still snow!

I’ve been spending less time downstairs and more upstairs recently. No food up here. Still I get hungry. It was on a foraging trip to the kitchen when I noticed something that didn’t look quite right.

A quick flip of the porch light showed there was snow and it was sticking. We probably don’t have much more than a quarter inch right now. What’s the bet that delays some schools?

I take solace knowing light snow was in the forecast when I left work Friday. I won’t be right for every storm. That’s my wintry fear.

My Lake Effect Snow Story

The best way to explain Buffalo’s lake effect snow is with a little story. It was the day Helaine and I got our marriage license. Because we were getting married in Pennsylvania we had to drive to Erie, PA.

This evening at 4:45 the Weather Service office in Buffalo relayed a report from West Seneca, NY. A volunteer observer measured 32″ of snow from Thursday’s persistent lake effect snowband.

I wasn’t surprised.

Winter weather in the Buffalo area is brutal. The city itself gets ‘only’ around 80″ of snow per year. The snow belt south of town can get as much as 150″. East of Lake Ontario, closer to Syracuse, it’s even worse.

The area east of Lake Ontario is the “snow capital” of the east. The higher elevations between Watertown and Syracuse, commonly known as the Tug Hill Plateau, receives of more than 200 inches a year. In fact, the town of Hooker, located in Lewis county, recorded 466 inches of snow during the winter of 1976-77! – source: National Weather Service Buffalo Forecast Office

I lived in Buffalo from 1980 through 1984. I will never forget those winters. It seemed to snow nearly every day even if only flurries.

The best way to explain Buffalo’s Lake Effect snow is with a little story. It was the day Helaine and I got our marriage license. We were living in Buffalo. We were getting married in Pennsylvania. The closest place to get a license was Erie, PA, about 100 miles away.

As we left our apartment skies were cloudy. By South Buffalo there were flurries. We paid our toll and got on the New York State Thruway. We passed West Seneca in heavy snow.

I was used to Western New York driving conditions so we continued southwest on the Thruway paralleling Lake Erie’s shoreline. By Dunkirk the snow was back down to flurries. Soon we were in bright sunshine. I remember the skies over Erie being blue and cloud free!

We paid our money, showed our blood tests (another story for another day–blood tests almost kept us from getting married) and got our license.

As we headed back to Buffalo every bit of weather was in the exact same place we left it!

From Erie’s sunshine we hit flurries in Dunkirk. Over the course of a few miles the snow ramped up in intensity. It was snowing heavily as we passed through West Seneca then back to flurries by South Buffalo. I parked under cloudy skies back at our Gates Circle apartment where there was no sign any new snow had fallen.

That’s the power of Lake Effect snow: Persistence!

Lake Effect snow bands are often just a few miles wide, but within those few miles snowfall rates of 4 or 5 inches per hour are possible. The strength of cold air aloft and alignment of wind decides where the snow goes and its intensity. The wind needs a long ‘fetch’ over Lake Erie to be effective as a snow maker. That limits where Lake Effect snow can fall.

As long as the cold wind blows the snow can fall for hours or even days! A few miles often decides whether you get feet of snow or just a dusting.

There are only a handful of places in the world where this setup of cold air and properly aligned body of water exist. Buffalo and Syracuse just got lucky I guess.

A Storm Unlike Any Other

I called and told him I was confused because I’d never seen this particular setup before. Neither had he!

dot greenwich camera.jpgEarlier tonight I took a quick look at one of the CT DOT traffic cameras on I-95 and gasped. The camera was in Greenwich-adjacent to the New York State line. While the rest of Connecticut was seeing moderate to heavy rain with temperatures mostly in the 40&#176s Greenwich had limited visibility with heavy snow. The snow had begun to accumulate!

dot westport camera.jpgA few miles up the road in Stamford there was nothing but rain! Even now, hours later, only the communities in Lower Fairfield are seeing the snow stick.

In retrospect the Greenwich blitz doesn’t change my forecast. It was scary to see–sure. The weather had done a rapid about face. It was all part of the forecast, but it happened so quickly and with such fury I was originally taken aback.

Let me qualify this because it’s easy to lose sight of what I’m talking about.

Something’s been falling from the sky since early Tuesday. One storm came and went. This is Part B of Storm 2. However, this unnamed¹ winter storm is so unusual scholarly papers will be written about it!

Thursday while Atlantic City was seeing snow Albany, NY was getting rain. Friday morning New Haven, CT will see snow while Bangor, ME gets the rain! Crazy.

90fbw.gifThe barometer is so low it’s approaching the range usually seen in hurricanes and tropical storms. We get pressure readings this low every decade or so.
Tonight, as the wind in New London shifted from east to southwest the temperature dropped 9&#176 in one hour! Cold air advection from the southwest! Isn’t that where warm air comes from?

Seriously–that’s nuts.

I called my weather colleague Dr. Mel Goldstein this afternoon. I’d developed my forecast but was unsure about one aspect. He’s a great weather historian so I called and told him I was confused because I’d never seen this particular setup before. Neither had he!

My concern was how much warm air would remain and how much water would stay on roads as the snow fell? How would this affect Friday? My guess is a great deal of the storm will just melt as it hits the pavement–not all of it. What does accumulate will be wet and sloppy and very heavy to move.

After Friday I’ll know better how my speculation comports with the real world. I am working totally in a theoretical world right now.
I am exhausted. This week has been a killer. There’s been no forecast where I could let up because they all were jammed with critical information.

Bring on the weekend.

¹ – As long as I’ve been in Connecticut WFSB has been naming storms. It’s probably a good promotional tool for them, but on those occasions when people refer to a storm by the WFSB given name I gag. These are people who also call the Fiesta Bowl the FedEx Fiesta Bowl.

The Weather Is Just Nuts!

The question is, how much sticks? Does any? Does all of it?

Bob, my professorial meteo friend popped an email to me a few hours ago. It was short and to the point.

rain in albany, snow in central park at same time – don’t see that too often

stream.NY-large.pngActually, you never see that. The streamline map on the left (click on the map as the real detail isn’t visible in the thumbnail image), not always a great rain/snow predictor makes today’s line vividly clear. Of course that’s a snapshot in time. The line will shift east later tonight.

That’s where my quandary lies. I’m reasonably sure it will snow. If I scrape my mouse across one of the tools that help me analyze the computer guidance I see around 10″ of snow by tomorrow night at New Haven. There are varying amounts elsewhere, but this is just an example.

The question is, how much sticks? Does any? Does all of it?

These aren’t totally uncharted waters, but it’s certainly an unusual enough scenario that I’ll take pause. There’s too much water on the ground now to be easily absorbed–to perk beneath the surface.

Temperatures will fall below 32&#176, but will they fall enough to freeze the water and allow snow to fall on top? That’s a really rare setup, water-to-ice with a snow capper, which implies it’s difficult to achieve.

Snow and water don’t mix. Snow always loses. Nothing will accumulate before freezing sets in.

Is it possible to have 10″ of snow fall and have none stick? Maybe. I’m really going to have to think this through and probably chat it up with friends/colleagues to get a better grasp. I’m not sure any of us have any experience quite like this.

So, how’s your day? I don’t go to work for another hour and I’ve already been working for a few!

Rita Takes Key West By Storm

The last weather observation from Key West is over an hour old. It’s possible the airfield is closed, or more likely phone lines and/or power is down.

Wind from the N (360 degrees) at 33 MPH (29 KT) gusting to 56 MPH (49 KT)

Visibility 9 mile(s)

Sky conditions overcast

Weather Lightning observed

Precipitation last hour 0.02 inches

Temperature 78 F (26 C)

Dew Point 73 F (23 C)

Relative Humidity 83%

Pressure (altimeter) 29.6 in. Hg (1002 hPa)

Pressure tendency falling rapidly

ob KEYW 201525Z AUTO 36029G49KT 9SM FEW017 BKN032 OVC050 26/23 A2960 RMK AO2 PK WND 01049/1517 LTG DSNT NW RAE21 PRESFR P0002

That’s ‘meteospeak’ for unpleasant. There’s more to come.

Out at the Sombrero Key Lighthouse, things are a little more gamey.

Conditions at SMKF1 as of 1700 GMT on 09/20/2005:

Wind Direction (WDIR): E ( 100 deg true )

Wind Speed (WSPD): 61 kts

Wind Gust (GST): 68 kts

Atmospheric Pressure (PRES): 29.57 in

Pressure Tendency (PTDY): -0.05 in ( Falling )

Air Temperature (ATMP): 81.9