January 26-27, 2015 "Bust" Roidzilla Storm In Review

nancy-j-s wrote:Not sure if this is the correct forum for this (perhaps it should be in Banter) but I want to say a few things.  I have been reading all kinds of negative comments about Meteorologists/ Weathermen/ women and the forecasts for this storm on the 'net and in the paper and hearing it on TV and how it was an "epic fail" and I just need to vent a bit.  
A “forecast” by definition is “An analysis of the state of the weather in an area with an assessment of likely developments.” Long range weather forecasting is not an exact science, since the elements are not static, but ever-changing.  For those of us who followed the predictions of this storm, the changes were, in fact, noted by various sources, including this forum, as they occurred.
To those complainers out there I say - so what if you bought some extra bread and milk and batteries?  It’s winter in the Northeast – perhaps you should just ready yourselves at the beginning of each season and not rely on others to tell you when to “panic”.    I understand that for some it may have been a hardship, with lost revenue from closing a business, etc., but seriously – it was just one day.  Emergency services, hospitals, EMS, firefighters and police were all on duty and working, so IMHO, we were really not inconvenienced that much.
To those complainers I say – learn to forecast the weather yourself, if you are so outraged that this storm did not occur as originally predicted.  Stop blaming everyone else!  The public outcry would have certainly been far worse had the storm occurred and no one had predicted it.
Thank you to all on this board who use your knowledge and take time out of your lives to keep the rest of us informed.    I am sure I speak for many when I say how much it is appreciated.

amugs wrote:

Dtone wrote:

amugs wrote:

wow thats one of the sharpest snow total gradients I've seen

Frank_Wx wrote:Typically after Godzilla snowstorms I like to do a "storm in review" post seeing the verification of the forecast (uhmmm) and just showing you how the storm evolved.

Obviously at this point we all know this was a bust for NYC and NJ. Even parts of LI did not get their expected snowfall totals.

My Final Call map:



Verification Map:



The biggest bust areas were all of NJ (besides shore points), the Hudson Valley, and eastern PA. The "2nd" tier bust zones (close, but no cigar) include NYC and western/central LI. The only areas that verified were eastern LI into Southern New England. As I explained into the "announcement" thread, the storm took an east shift in track that costed NYC on west a Godzilla snowstorm (a Roidzilla for central LI). Some posters from this forum are from eastern LI and they got their Roidzilla (24+ snow). Awesome for you guys! Overall grade, F.



This is the upper air map from the 00z EURO last night. What we actually witnessed was an inverted trough. I did not realize this until someone had pointed it out to me. But an inverted trough compared to a a typical deepening low within an ordinary trough is a big difference. Notice the height rises on the north side of the closed H5 low. The contour lines are pointing outward - almost looks like a ridge! Meanwhile, the base of the trough looks very disoriented. It is pointing outwards in 2 directions (marked with red line) and the energy is not consolidated, meaning the phase was partial not full. An inverted trough brings localized heavy snow to a particular area. It is not usually widespread because of how the energy is positioned within the trough. There is also a lot of dry, or sinking air, associated with inverted trough's that prevent precipitation from moving beyonf  certain point west. That point for us happened to be NYC. The GFS model did not show a full phase while the EURO model did, but the GFS model still performed pretty poorly.



At the 00z GFS run last night (the storm was already happening at this point), look at what this model predicted in snow for the area. Just 2-4 inches for NYC? 3-6 inches for western/central LI? WRONG!!!!! At least the EURO got the snow amounts right but it busted badly with handling of the surface low. In my mind, both models performed badly but the EURO did worse. To continuously show a deepening surface low just inside the BM bringing blizzard conditions to the area for 3 consecutive days and not verify is just...awful.

So which model got it best? Well, I do not think there was one very good model. They all did bad. The complexity of the set-up and all the dynamics involved made this a very tough system for models to grasp. But if I had to choose, it would have to be the Canadian.

00z/Mon. CMC SLP



00z/Mon. CMC Snow Map



The Canadian was still a little bullish in snow totals for western areas, but it was pretty damn close compared to other models. I liked where it placed the surface low and how it handled the outer bands. It seemed to pick up on the inverted trough / subsidence the best.

EURO Snow Map



Oh Lord. Mr. EURO...you and I no longer see eye-to-eye. In fact, this was yet another learning lesson for me. So in the end, thank you.

Snow88 wrote:Time lapse from Eastern LI

http://www.nextstopmagazine.com/article/2015/1/28/Really-Cool-Timelapse-of-the-2015-Blizzard-in-Eastern-Long-Island-NY

Frank_Wx wrote:Wow, look at the cut offs. This is the verification map from NWS. CRAZY! Difference in shift of 50 miles west would have buried NYC



Some people don't understand now tough a forecast this actually was.