Looking Back at the Blizzard!

Well with the Blizzard of '09 in the books, I figured I'd look back on things, my forecasts, and some things that stood out.

Some Model Analysis

It was incredible to watch the computer models dance around this for days leading up to Wednesday and then suddenly go bonkers from DC North. Kudos to the NAM model for picking up that this was going to be a VERY juicy storm. It scores another coup this month. And one thing I've noticed, is that when it comes to some of the bigtime events in the East, this model tends to do VERY well. This occurred on a notable scale around Valentine's Day of 2007. It started upping the amounts of precipitation expected right away. Began at 2-2.5" and ran it up to 3-3.5" with time, and absolutely nailed the corridor that took in the most snow ultimately. The NAM also did a VERY important thing during this storm. It consistently showed that on the north and west fringe on the snow shield, there was going to be a very sharp cut off between little to no snow and warning criteria snowfall. This verified remarkably well. We can argue there were some issues with placement of it, but major kudos, as this is something the GFS model lost as we got close in. So while the NAM model is maligned in many respects, and rightfully so, it has proven during two of the most recent historic events in the Northeast to have a formidable amount of skill. The NAM will flop on a major snowstorm in the future...that's destined. But in the meantime, if it does show a unique solution that makes some sense, then I think one needs to take it into consideration when forecasting.

The Calls

Here is the order of my forecasts/calls issued chronologically. Click any image to enlarge.

Initial Concerns:








First Accumulation Call:








Second Call:








Third Call:










Fourth/Final Call:









Modeled Snow Totals through 7 AM EDT 12/20/09


All in all I'm rating my third call the best. Just some quick highlights...

Initial Call: Issued Wednesday night. Worked well in DC and VA. Nailed the corridor of max snow that occurred in DE and NJ. Nailed the mixing on the coast. Did not work in that I had the mixing too far north, left out LI, NY and New England. Did not hit the max that occurred in S PA and especially SE PA. Overall a D for missing NY and New England.

First Accumulation Call: Issued Thursday afternoon. Worked well again in DC/VA. Underdid amounts, but not terrible for an initial call. Successfully included NY and New England. Hit on max potential in NJ again. Once again nailed the mixing, but again was too far north with it. Underdid amounts across the board in the main area of snow. Was too far north with the 2-6" range. Overdid snow amounts on Delmarva. Overall I'll go C+ here, pluses for lead time and continuing to do decent in the Mid-Atlantic, but minuses for faltering a bit in New England/Long Island again.

Second Call: Issued Thursday Night. Backed off a bit on totals because of model trends. But essentially had a similar map to Call 1. A little bit more an expansive map. Overdid parts of Ohio here. Was way too bullish in PA/NW NJ north of I-76/78. Better in Delmarva. Left out the max total bullseye in NJ/DE. A downgrade from the first call. D.

Third Call: Issued Friday afternoon. Probably the best map of the event. From north to south. Did very well in Southeast Mass. deliniating the line between Blizzard conditions/totals and moderate totals. However, missed a good chunk of Northeast Mass. up into Maine. Wasn't quite far enough west in Central Massachusetts. Was decent in Southern RI, but not so much in N RI. Overall I needed to lift my bands about 45 miles further NW in Mass and the max bands about 20 miles further NW in RI/CT. Did very well in Western CT. Did well on the Western half of Long Isl, but grossly underdid the eastern half. Did well in NJ for the most part, except was too bullish with mixing to the North. Didn't do terribly in PA with the cutoffs, but needed to be a little more northwest in SE PA. Maybe a little too aggressive still on Delmarva, but did decent in MD/VA and WV. Overall, I'll give it a solid B.

Last Call: Should have just kept the initial call and modified New England. Not a great update. Give it a C.

All things considered...room for improvement, but I'm content that I didn't at least flop mega-time.

I outlined some specific totals in calls 3 and 4 (modified slightly from the maps). Let's see how those worked out... (The first range in white is the forecast #, the blue colored text represents the actual for the station, as well as Metro/Area totals near that forecast point):

Call 3
RIC: 6-10" (7.4"... 6-14" area-wide)
ROA: 15-25" (17.8"... 15-20" area-wide)
DCA: 12-20" (16.4"... 16-23" area-wide)
BWI: 10-18" (21.0"... 14-23" area-wide)
Baltimore: 10-18" (17"... 12-20" area-wide)
Wilmington: 10-18" (17.0", 13-18" area-wide)
Philly: 7-14" (23.2"... 14-24" area-wide)
ACY: 12-20" (12.1"... 10-18" area-wide)
MIV: 12-24" (16-24" area-wide)
Cape May-Seaside Heights: 7-14" (4-10" Cape May, 12-20" Ocean County)
Dover: 12-24" (18.0", 13-22" area-wide)
SBY: 5-10" (4-6" area-wide)
TTN: 7-14" (7-14" area-wide)
ABE: 3-7" (5.6"... 3-6" area-wide)
MDT: 4-9" (8.8"... 6-18" area-wide)
AVP: 1-4" (0.3"... 1-4" South and East)
NYC (Bronx/Yonkers): 6-12" (8-10" Bronx, 10-12" Yonkers)
NYC (Queens/JFK): 8-16" (10.9" CPK, 8.8" LGA, 14.2" JFK)
Hartford: 3-7" (3-7")
Providence: 4-9" (15.1"... 14-22" area-wide)
Boston: 3-7" (10.0"... 8-14" area-wide)
Suffolk Co, LI: 10-20" (14-28")
Nassau Co, LI: 8-16" (12-18")
Morristown: 4-8" (4-10")

Call 4
RIC: 7-14" (7.4"... 6-14" area-wide)
ROA: 20-30" (17.8"... 15-20" area-wide)
CHO: 18-28"(21.0", 18-24" area-wide)
DCA: 15-24" (16.4"... 16-23" area-wide)
BWI: 14-22" (21.0"... 14-23" area-wide)
ILG: 14-22" (17.0", 13-18" area-wide)
PHL: 10-18" (23.2"... 14-24" area-wide)
ACY: 13-23" (12.1"... 10-18" area-wide)
MIV: 15-24" (16-24" area-wide)
Beachfront Towns in: DE-Cape May Co NJ-Atlantic Co: 7-14" (4-6" Cape May to 12" Atlantic City)
Mainland Towns in above locations: 10-20" (10-18")
DOV: 15-24" (18.0", 13-22" area-wide)
SBY: 5-10" (4-6" area-wide)
TTN: 10-20" (7-14" area-wide)
ABE: 5-10" (5.6", 3-6" area-wide)
AVP: 2-5" (0.3"... 1-4" South and East)
MDT: 5-10" (Higher amts in Lancaster/York) (8.8" MDT, 12-20" Lancaster/York)
NYC//LI: 7-14" N & W, 10-20" S & E (8-16" N & W, 14-28" S & E)
HFD: 5-10" (3-7")
PVD: 6-13" (15.1"... 14-22" area-wide)
BOS: 5-10" (10.0"... 8-14" area-wide)
MMU: 6-12" (4-10")

Overall, a good learning experience for sure. Pleased with how things worked out for the most part. Thanks to everyone who played along and gave me some snow totals and basically encouraged me to keep outputting maps. Here's to the next one happening in late February when I have nothing planned to do with myself!

Latest on the Impending Winter Storm in the East 12/19-20, 2009

So no one on here really cares about the meteorology behind the storm. Y'all just want to know how much in my backyard. I'll try and make it simple. Some might argue I shouldn't care either. It's going to be 70-75 and sunny all weekend here. But, hey, when you get no weather and you love weather, you miss weather. I'll live vicariously.

This is a very complex setup. Cold air has drained in. You have major atmospheric blocking taking place out West, over Greenland, in the Arctic. You have energy driving in from the west. You have a monstrosity of moisture lifting north from the Gulf. It's what I call a powder keg setup, because something is going to explode. This may very well be what is needed to explode.

The philosophy early on was that the moisture from the Gulf was going to slide into the Carolinas and Virginia. Then that second batch of energy would follow suit and bring some snow showers north of Richmond, VA into PA. That never really entirely made sense, but it's what the models were saying...so other than screaming "Potential!" there's been no way to really hammer that someone is going to get rocked.

So there are a number of different "models" we use. Like the runway, some are hotter than others. There's the NAM (only forecasts 3.5 days, but is a higher resolution). There's the GFS (main American computer model, that forecasts out 16 days...generally useful in the first couple days (though that's debatable) and then can just be used to identify trends (hotter, colder, wetter, etc.) in the longer range. There's the European model (similar to the GFS, but generally superior). And then there's a bunch of others. A Canadian, the UKMET (British model), and a bunch of high resolution, short-range models that we use as well.

The NAM was the first to bite and crushed areas south of the Mason-Dixon line with heavy snow. The NAM edged northward with time. The European model this morning absolutely blasted DC to Boston. All the models are generally trending toward one another now that we're close in (though the Euro threw a curve ball tonight, which I don't trust). So we can say a few things.

- Storm will spread moisture/snow into the Mid-Atlantic (south of Philly) Saturday before sunrise.

- Snow should develop across South NJ and Philly through Saturday morning.

- Snow will struggle to get north of I-195 through the day Saturday.

- As the storm system undergoes rapid cyclogenesis (strengthens rapidly) off the coast of MD/DE/NJ, heavy snow will rapidly explode and spread north through NJ, eastern PA, NYC, CT, Long Island, RI and MA.

- That should occur Saturday evening or before Midnight.

- Heavy snow will linger through the night Saturday and wind down from DC through NYC from 7 AM to 4 PM Sunday. Snow may not end til Monday morning around sunrise in Boston.

So how much? Here you go!

Click to make BIG!

Looking at Winter

I don't normally do stuff like this, but I figured I would give it a whirl.

One of the things I did when I worked in Utica was work with our other meteorologists and devise a winter outlook for our region. Long-term forecasting has very little use or purpose in television, so this was mainly for giggles. And there were a couple instances where things worked out pretty well. I took it seriously last year...wrote a whole blog entry on it...some things worked..others didn't.

January worked. Here was our January forecast: http://bimedia.ftp.clickability.com/wktvwebftp/JanuaryTemps.JPG
Here's how January verified: http://www.hprcc.unl.edu/products/maps/acis/Jan09TDeptUS.png


December didn't work out too well...

December Forecast: http://bimedia.ftp.clickability.com/wktvwebftp/DecemberTemps.JPG

December Actual: http://www.hprcc.unl.edu/products/maps/acis/Dec08TDeptUS.png

You get the idea. There's an art to seasonal forecasting...usually no one ever gets it really right. I attribute the stuff that did work last year to dumb luck more than anything else.

Now that I'm in a field where there is a bit of a premium on longer range forecasting, I've learned a few new things, adapted some new ideas, etc. But I still have miles to go.

That said, I was hoping I would be able to do a seasonal forecast for work, but we go month by month, rather than a full season. Different than a lot of other places. But in a sense, it's a positive, because I can groom myself more without risking hurting my company...and I get good practice in devising an outlook. Kind of fun. Not a bad trade off.

So let's talk about winter. Since this is mainly written for a handful of people that ask me about this stuff, it will be pretty straight-forward. If you want to know more about how some of it all works, just ask.

The single biggest influence on the weather here in the US comes from the Pacific Ocean. Think of the atmosphere like a river. What happens upstream tends to impact what happens downstream. Weather generally moves from west to east across the continent, so upstream for our purposes would be the Pacific Ocean and also western Canada. The image below shows the temperatures compared to normal since the beginning of October in the US and Canada. Blue means below normal, and green or yellow means above normal. White means near normal. One thing you'd like to see for a cold, snowy winter, is cold air in Canada. Cold air leads to snow cover build up, which ultimately can act as a reservoir for cold air. Since October, we really haven't had that:
















So we really don't have any "significant" cold air buildup that has occurred in that part of the world. Thus, we don't have much snowpack either. The image on the top shows snow cover from November 11th of last year. The one at bottom is this year (click to open them)...



The main differences that become apparent are in Canada and Asia. Last year, Alaska and the NW Territory/Yukon were pretty much rock solid in snow. Snow extended into much of Central and Eastern Canada too. This year, it's not as far south (except in a handful of spots in the British Columbia mountains). Nor is it as solid as it was last year. However, on the top of those maps, China and Mongolia show a distinct difference. Lots of snow this year...none last year. What does that mean? It's been cold on the other side of the Pole...not on this side. This may mean that the first half of winter is going to struggle to see much cold and snow. And in fact, the weather forecast for the next two weeks reflects that. However, this could also mean that once the pattern does change toward cold, we do get some impressive cold shots.

Next up is the Pacific. We have a few things going on. You can see a map of global sea surface temperature anomalies; basically, how much warmer or colder the oceans are compared to normal (click to make it bigger).

What do we notice here? Well the first thing is that in general, the waters of the North Pacific are a bit cooler than normal south of Alaska. There is some warmer water as well near the Aleutians and creeping up the West Coast. But overall, the North Pacific can be characterized as "neutral." That means when you average it all together, it comes out near zero. That muddies the picture a bit, because typically you'd like to see some sort of strong signal from the Northern Pacific to help determine what the predominant weather pattern would be.

So then by looking for other signs, you notice the equator. And that's likely to be the biggest driver this winter: El Niño. Warmer than normal water stretches from a belt off Peru west to the Dateline along the Equator. In the last four weeks or so, we've seen a tremendous uptick in the intensity of this. In September it appeared we had a wimpy El Niño. The month of October developed a formidable one. This isn't an epic El Niño. But this is certainly strong enough to have an impact on our weather. And it probably will. The strength of the El Niño often determines how much cold and snow the Eastern US sees. In general, the southern states see more precipitation than normal (and we've seen this already in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee with many areas seeing 150-300% of their normal rainfall since August and September). In general, the weaker the El Niño, the more cold and snow in parts of the East.

So we have that out of the way. I also looked at a few other things, included the pattern in the North Atlantic and Arctic. I tried to find some years that have been similar in those regions to see what they generally did. I biased my forecast in the East part of the way toward that (~ 30% weighted). But primarily I focused on the Pacific, the El Nino and what's happening south of Alaska (~70% weighted on that in the East). I like to say that seasonal forecasting is not always a science, but an art, so there's a modest amount of "gut" built into this as well.

So here we go. I'll start with some temperature maps for the next few months, and then I'll talk a little more about snow/temp specifics for a few places.














Apologies for the formatting. Not exactly what I was hoping for, but click any image to open up a better quality one. So I've got the winter backloaded in the East. Now, above normal doesn't mean you can't get periods of cold and snow. I just question if anything is going to be sustained for more than three or four days in any one place.

So let's talk snow. In the years I looked at for "best matches," I checked out the snowfall totals for various places. The range I predict is the first number. What is "normal," for a season is the 2nd number.

Syracuse: 120-130" (121")
Utica: 95-105" (98")
Albany: 65-75" (63")
Boston: 45-55" (43")
New York City: 25-35" (22")
Philadelphia: 20-30" (19")
Washington DC: 16-26" (15")
Atlantic City: 15-25" (13.5")

The bottom line this winter may end up being that we see an active southern branch of the jet stream (which often happens in El Niños). The question becomes then whether or not we see enough cold air in place in concert with that active southern branch to produce good snow in places from DC north. I would bias a snowfall forecast slightly higher than normal, given this setup and the fact that we've already had a couple decent nor'easters this autumn (sometimes that pattern carries over into winter). Snow totals may fall short in the Lakes though, as there may not be quite enough cold to general real good lake effect snow. However, 2006-2007 was an El Niño year, and that produced incredible lake effect snow...primarily from Jan 20th onward. So something to watch.

One thing I did notice in the years I looked at were some extremes...on both sides of the coin...years with no snow, years with oodles of it. So that would be a major caution going forward.

So there you have it. Again, just for fun and for my own practice. We'll see what ultimately happens.

Heat + Drought = Fire

My first real close experience with a wildfire (since the days of seeing Pinelands fires in NJ from 30 miles away as a kid) occurred today. A 250 acre fire broke out in Angeles National Forest this afternoon, about 15 miles to my east, north of Azusa.


View Larger Map

I happened to wake up from my daily nap to the hum of news helicopters passing by. I looked out my window, and I saw this interesting scene:


It's nice to know I live in the middle of a city, so I'm not at risk here, but it certainly can be slightly frightening.

Downtown LA hit 89 degrees this afternoon. Burbank hit 94, Riverside 99, Ontario 99. It's heating up, and what's scary is that this is only the beginning. Riverside and Ontario may top out over 105 by Thursday or Friday. Burbank should easily hit 100, and Los Angeles could hit 95 or better. By far, the hottest weather of the season. We're certainly not alone. Phoenix and Vegas are progged to hit 105-110 easily. Phoenix should top out over 110. We may not get much relief out here until Sunday, if not Monday. Going to be a rough couple of days.

The only saving grace is a lack of wind. This isn't a Santa Ana event, so we're not dealing with those fire whipping winds every day. But, with relative humidity plummeting and temperatures soaring, fire risk will remain extremely high. Hopefully we can escape this without many big problems.

It Feels Like the East

So much for blogging regularly.

Monsoon

It definitely feels like the East here today, as monsoonal moisture, which crept in Friday, was firmly entrenched in the area yesterday and today. This spells higher humidity for a change. Of course, most of the area didn't see any thunderstorms unfortunately, but some parts of SoCal did, including the San Bernardino Mountains, and areas north of LA. I guess temperatures were the interesting weather feature Saturday. Ontario hit 95, Riverside hit 96...balmy. More interestingly, LAX hit 81° on Saturday, which is the warmest they've been since the mid-April heat wave!

The real, true heat was short lived though, as a Catalina Eddy spun up this morning and is holding temperatures down 3-5 degrees in most areas, so back to reality for a change.

June Gloom

Sure, it's August. But June Gloom type weather has been dominant out here most of the month. That pattern looks to return starting perhaps Monday, as the cut-off low responsible for keeping the marine layer locked in all of last week actually swings through. We may not see the marine layer get all the way inland like it had been last week, but clouds are likely in most of the immediate LA area before burning off mid morning. This pattern looks to stay with us through Tuesday and perhaps Wednesday.

Late August Recovery?

Starting on Wednesday however, a pretty big ridge of high pressure is forecasted to begin building over the intermountain West. This should at least allow for a warm stretch of weather on Thursday and Friday for most of Southern California, except at the immediate coast. Then, depending on what model you believe, either a weak cutoff will develop offshore, likely increasing the marine layer (though the Inland Empire and deserts will likely still cook), or a weak disturbance spinning off the upper low in the Gulf of Alaska is going to pinwheel into the Northwest and lead to a ramping up of the marine layer perhaps for next weekend.

What About Early September?

I know. We're getting a bit ahead of ourselves. But if you look at the climatology of Southern California, the warmest weather of the year is from roughly Aug 28-September 10th. The general rule of thumb is that typically, you can get your first real cool autumn air mass diving into the Great Basin around this time. That often translates to a Santa Ana event in SoCal, which leads to some of the year's hottest weather. The GFS model runs through September 8th today. There is nothing at all showing up on that model that would suggest an early season Santa Ana. Since 2000, there have been seven years which included a heat spike or Santa Ana event in that time period (late Aug/early Sept). So it would be trendy to forecast at least one period of substantial heating thru 9/10. Whether or not that happens remains to be seen. The last panel of today's GFS model shows a slightly deeper trough off the NW Coast. If that can swing inland to the Great Basin, that could be what's needed to generate this chain of events. But that's over 300 hours away...eons in meteorology. That said, having no solid Santa Ana signature right now is a good thing, given how dry the region is. We'll see.

The Beginning

Well, after two months of living here, I suppose it's about time I cave in and begin blogging. I moved to Southern California from Upstate New York. I now work for a major energy company, forecasting weather for the Southland. My goal for this blog will be multi-faceted. Now that I am no longer in TV, I can sort of talk more honestly about things. So I'll discuss the weather, perhaps for elsewhere in the country and to some extent here. And anything else that piques my interest along the way, I'll give some face time to. There really is no ultimate goal. I just would like to get into the position of doing what I did in New York, on my own terms and in my own time. Thoughts, comments, suggestions, welcome!

We'll see where it goes!