Central Park totals worse than ever.

Just sent an email as well cp

Sent an e mail CP.If they persist on screwing up the measurements, we will barrage them with e mails.No rest for the weary until this problem is solved.I understand your anger.In your job , as well as my old one in Dentistry, you cannot have any tolerance for errors.If you constantly screw up statistics, your are out of work.If I was off thousands of an inch on a crown placement, disaster would strike.There is just no excuse for a major City in the USA, where records are seen for many years, should consistently make terrible errors in snow measurements.

We've got your back, buddy.

Just sent one too CP. Even Nick Gregory made a comment last night saying they measured 3.5 in Central Park even though 4.5" of liquid fell! Light the torches, get out the pitchforks and let's storm his quarters! When we get home we will throw him to the polar bears once and for all! Public pressure can make things happen.

Below is NOAA's reply to me last night.

Translation, it's just to complex a problem for us to fix. Sure we can send spaceships beyond our solar system, but accurate snowfall measurements, we just can't figure out how to do it.
Thanks Frank, Docstox, Skins, Mugs, Al and all others who have sent e-mails. To all that have not, do it today. They will eventually get it straight.

----- Original Message -----
From: okx webmaster - NOAA Service Account
To: Management Software Services
Sent: Monday, February 02, 2015 10:55 PM
Subject: Re: Feb 2 snow totals in CPK


Yup.  I'll get it fixed.  Send me any measurement you make though.


Maybe someday will get this problem resolved once and for all.  


Jeff  



On Mon, Feb 2, 2015 at 10:00 PM,   wrote:

Well here we go again, the zookeeper madness continues.

LaGuardia reports 6.6 inches of snow, Newark 4.6 inches and a trained spotter in Manhattan 6.2 inches and miraculously central Park comes in with 3.6 inches. Hopefully when you make the official log the 3.6 inches will be ignored as it's obviously wrong again.

You should also change the January 24 total which was entered as 2.5 inches in central Park but was actually 4.2 inches. Also the 0.5 on January 6 was actually 1.2 inches I was there and I measured that one myself.

Thanks as always

Send e-mails to.

okx.webmaster@noaa.gov

"TELL THEM YOUR MAD AS HELL AND YOU"RE NOT GONNA TAKE IT ANYMORE"

Inspiration video from other page below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WINDtlPXmmE

This storm is one of the zookeepers worst.
Apparently someone at the Bronx Zoo has been taking decent measurements. (6.7" before last nights snow squall) The last storm had a decent total as well. Maybe he/she can get transferred to the Central Park Zoo. They are under the same organization.

It's ridiculous that we can't get a competent measurer for one of the most important cities in the world in terms of maintaining a legitimate climate record. I shared the email address on USAwx as well. I'm going to send them an email. It's strange that they claim to have little / no control over this. Really?

ALL:

I sent an email and got a response.  My email is first and then the response from Jeff follows:

Hello I am a long running weather enthusiast living in the New York City area. For years it has frustrated me that Central Park has incorrectly tallied snow totals. This is historical data for New York City and should be tallied properly. Last night and today's storm is a prime example of the under accounting of snow in Central Park. How did we only receive 3 1/2 inches when all of the other boroughs reported at least 5 inches of snow even JFK airport which is typically the warmest spot in the whole area came in with 4 1/2 inches of snow. Something is very off with your snow total's storm after storm. It's frustrating, misleading and statistically incorrect. I hope there are plans to fix this problem.

John

Thanks for your e-mail John.
We all feel your frustration.  We're going to revise the records as what was reported was obviously wrong.  
Our problems is that we rely on volunteers at the Central Park Zoo.  It seems that some of the staff are very good at measuring snow and others are not.  

Jeff

Here is the response to my email. I specifically asked them to find one of their trained spotters near the park, since they should have a record of who they have trained....

Thanks for your e-mail Janet.


We all feel your frustration.  We're going to revise the records as what was reported was obviously wrong. 


Our problems is that we rely on volunteers at the Central Park Zoo.  It seems that some of the staff are very good at measuring snow and others are not.   We have not yet had anyone "step up" to do this.  In fact, it's a rare day we get anyone to measure in Manhattan.

Janet, I still find it really difficult to believe that in Manhattan an island of almost 2,000,000 people they can't find someone to accurately measure snow.I'm sure there's trained spotters there, and I'm sure there are some that live right near central Park.

I think I may have to take up Muggsy on his idea and were just all going to have to go down there as a group during big storms and rent out a hotel room so we can take accurate measurements and party the night away. NOAA should reimburse us for food, and drink, and rooms. I swear if I was retired I would do it myself.

The battle has just begun. Thanks as always for your help.

Isotherm wrote:It's ridiculous that we can't get a competent measurer for one of the most important cities in the world in terms of maintaining a legitimate climate record. I shared the email address on USAwx as well. I'm going to send them an email. It's strange that they claim to have little / no control over this. Really?

Isotherm:

Thanks for your help, I appreciate you posting this on other Forums, the more people that contact them the better. Hopefully they will get the message soon and do something about it. This is been an ongoing problem on and off for years. When I contacted them last December about it they said they were going to do something about it and actually fixed it. Central Park actually posted accurate measurements from January through the rest of the season. As you well know this year we're back to square one.

CP

For anyone growing weary of the struggle with NOAA and Central Park, watch the attached 1 minute video.

The Scene is from the movie Network. You can substitute me for anyone yelling, 30 years of observing incompetence is long enough.

https://video.search.yahoo.com/video/play;_ylt=A0LEVv5d9dRUwVYAgCsnnIlQ;_ylu=X3oDMTBsa3ZzMnBvBHNlYwNzYwRjb2xvA2JmMQR2dGlkAw--?p=people+yelling+out+windows+i%27m+mad+as+hell+and+i%27m+not+going+to+take+it+anymore&tnr=21&vid=EC01B05F664F9BABDD26EC01B05F664F9BABDD26&l=72&turl=http%3A%2F%2Fts4.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DUN.608009520931736915%26pid%3D15.1&sigi=11r9ke3e9&rurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DlicwOgzBqo0&sigr=11agrjr5o&tt=b&tit=i%26%2339%3Bm+mad+as+hell+and+i%26%2339%3Bm+not+going+to+take+it+anymore&sigt=11sttdcl5&back=https%3A%2F%2Fsearch.yahoo.com%2Fyhs%2Fsearch%3Fp%3Dpeople%2Byelling%2Bout%2Bwindows%2Bim%2Bmad%2Bas%2Bhell%2Band%2Bim%2Bnot%2Bgoing%2Bto%2Btake%2Bit%2Banymore%26ei%3DUTF-8%26hsimp%3Dyhs-001%26hspart%3Dmozilla&sigb=14plht7t3&hspart=mozilla&hsimp=yhs-001

Just to update any that are following:

NOAA has not updated any of the incorrect measurements from January which they had e-mailed me that they were going to correct. Nor have they updated the ridiculous 3.6 inch total from February in which every reporting station in New York City other than central Park, recorded 4 1/2 to 7 inches.

Sometimes they respond and actually fix things like they did last year, but so far this year we've received great responses, they agree with everything we say, but so far they've done nothing. We will just have to keep after them.

I'm sure with the moderate snow that's gone on in central Park this morning there must be at least a measurable couple of tenths of an inch of snow but we shall see if on the 4 PM update they do the typical and put a trace.

Maddening

Indeed it's a trace

I also noticed a lot of cloudy observations there.I wonder if the official observations are also an issue

The 7 AM Central Park measurement today, 2/17/15, came in at 3.0 inches. From looking at other observations in the area it looks like that's in the ballpark. The one thing to note is that the observation wasn't taken by the central Park zoo, it was done by ASOS.

I suspect our e-mailing campaign did some good here because that's the first ASOS observation I've seen in Central Park in many years. It's certainly more reliable than having a zoo employee go out at noon this afternoon after the snow has either compressed or melted on the pavement and report that 1 inch fell. It appears that NOAA may finally be using common sense. Congratulations to them if that's the case, it took a long time but better late than never. Hopefully this continues with future storms.

Before I declare victory, let's see if the noon update includes the snow that fell after 7 AM. In the past that would be treated like it never happened.

How long would it be before they fix those other totals from earlier snow events? Still see that it hasn't changed yet.

JoeBx82 wrote:How long would it be before they fix those other totals from earlier snow events? Still see that it hasn't changed yet.

I've sent a couple of followup e-mails and they said they're working on it. Having worked in the computer industry for 30 years I know how difficult and time consuming it can be to change a couple of numbers in a database. It can take several seconds sometimes.

CPcantmeasuresnow wrote:The 7 AM Central Park measurement today, 2/17/15, came in at 3.0 inches. From looking at other observations in the area it looks like that's in the ballpark. The one thing to note is that the observation wasn't taken by the central Park zoo, it was done by ASOS.

I suspect our e-mailing campaign did some good here because that's the first ASOS observation I've seen in Central Park in many years. It's certainly more reliable than having a zoo employee go out at noon this afternoon after the snow has either compressed or melted on the pavement and report that 1 inch fell. It appears that NOAA may finally be using common sense. Congratulations to them if that's the case, it took a long time but better late than never. Hopefully this continues with future storms.

Before I declare victory, let's see if the noon update includes the snow that fell after 7 AM. In the past that would be treated like it never happened.

Sounds good. I say another half inch fell after 7. At least 1/4".

CPcantmeasuresnow wrote:

JoeBx82 wrote:How long would it be before they fix those other totals from earlier snow events? Still see that it hasn't changed yet.

I've sent a couple of followup e-mails and they said they're working on it. Having worked in the computer industry for 30 years I know how difficult and time consuming it can be to change a couple of numbers in a database. It can take several seconds sometimes.

Thanks lol.

No observations at LGA CPK or EWR since 7

Or JFK

CPcantmeasuresnow wrote:The 7 AM Central Park measurement today, 2/17/15, came in at 3.0 inches. From looking at other observations in the area it looks like that's in the ballpark. The one thing to note is that the observation wasn't taken by the central Park zoo, it was done by ASOS.

I suspect our e-mailing campaign did some good here because that's the first ASOS observation I've seen in Central Park in many years. It's certainly more reliable than having a zoo employee go out at noon this afternoon after the snow has either compressed or melted on the pavement and report that 1 inch fell. It appears that NOAA may finally be using common sense. Congratulations to them if that's the case, it took a long time but better late than never. Hopefully this continues with future storms.

Before I declare victory, let's see if the noon update includes the snow that fell after 7 AM. In the past that would be treated like it never happened.

And the noon update still shows 3.0 inches in CPK. Nothing added after 7AM.

Not a good sign but lets see what the 4 pm update brings us.

I think las time they did 7am then 1pm

Abba701 wrote:I think las time they did 7am then 1pm

They do a daily climate update at about 4:20 PM for the day to that point, on the NOAA site. They then summarize the full day at about 1:25 AM.

http://www.weather.gov/climate/index.php?wfo=okx

3.3.The last observation was from the zoo.

They got it right this time, and is in line with 3.2" at LGA, 3.5" at JFK and 3.2" at Newark. Also 3.1" for myself.
CPK is at 24.4" for the season, probably should be in the low 30s," like LGA (32.3"). Ive measured similar # for myself as well.