Re: Wx Banter Thread 2.0

[CPcantmeasuresnow]

Well what a shock WSW canceled in Red Sox Suck, downgraded to a WWA for 1-4 inches of snow today and with it 34 degrees and just starting to change to snow after noon they'll be lucky to get that.

Gee they had a WSW this morning for 6-10 inches and one yesterday too when they received 0.6 inches. Now who could have seen that coming?

I guess Cantore must be looking like a drowned rat by now!

And the final tally is in from Red Sox Suck. The big winter storm that was predicted to drop up to 10 inches on Red Sox Suck today comes in with a final amount of 1.0 inches.

I think that's huge bust number 4 this year.

[rb924119]

Well what a shock WSW canceled in Red Sox Suck, downgraded to a WWA for 1-4 inches of snow today and with it 34 degrees and just starting to change to snow after noon they'll be lucky to get that.

Gee they had a WSW this morning for 6-10 inches and one yesterday too when they received 0.6 inches. Now who could have seen that coming?

I guess Cantore must be looking like a drowned rat by now!

And the final tally is in from Red Sox Suck. The big winter storm that was predicted to drop up to 10 inches on Red Sox Suck today comes in with a final amount of 1.0 inches.

I think that's huge bust number 4 this year.

And the greatest April Fool's joke ever played by a major government agency is complete!!!! God that's SO bad!! I really wish that we all could have been flies on their wall to see what they were looking at and thinking when they made their forecast. I'd be very curious.

[Quietace]

Well what a shock WSW canceled in Red Sox Suck, downgraded to a WWA for 1-4 inches of snow today and with it 34 degrees and just starting to change to snow after noon they'll be lucky to get that.

Gee they had a WSW this morning for 6-10 inches and one yesterday too when they received 0.6 inches. Now who could have seen that coming?

I guess Cantore must be looking like a drowned rat by now!

And the final tally is in from Red Sox Suck. The big winter storm that was predicted to drop up to 10 inches on Red Sox Suck today comes in with a final amount of 1.0 inches.

I think that's huge bust number 4 this year.

And the greatest April Fool's joke ever played by a major government agency is complete!!!! God that's SO bad!! I really wish that we all could have been flies on their wall to see what they were looking at and thinking when they made their forecast. I'd be very curious.

It was a actually fairly difficult storm to forecast. Let's not be too arrogant. Though, that is not to say Tauton has had a good preforming winter. The events have not been rather textbook in these parts. Another tough forecast coming Tuesday for GYX. BL temps have been quite marginal in combination with the high sun angle is adding increased uncertainty with a already spread guidance package in reference to the strength of CAD.

[rb924119]

Well what a shock WSW canceled in Red Sox Suck, downgraded to a WWA for 1-4 inches of snow today and with it 34 degrees and just starting to change to snow after noon they'll be lucky to get that.

Gee they had a WSW this morning for 6-10 inches and one yesterday too when they received 0.6 inches. Now who could have seen that coming?

I guess Cantore must be looking like a drowned rat by now!

And the final tally is in from Red Sox Suck. The big winter storm that was predicted to drop up to 10 inches on Red Sox Suck today comes in with a final amount of 1.0 inches.

I think that's huge bust number 4 this year.

And the greatest April Fool's joke ever played by a major government agency is complete!!!! God that's SO bad!! I really wish that we all could have been flies on their wall to see what they were looking at and thinking when they made their forecast. I'd be very curious.

It was a actually fairly difficult storm to forecast. Let's not be too arrogant. Though, that is not to say Tauton has had a good preforming winter. The events have not been rather textbook in these parts. Another tough forecast coming Tuesday for GYX. BL temps have been quite marginal in combination with the high sun angle is adding increased uncertainty with a already spread guidance package in reference to the strength of CAD.

Oh I didn't mean for that to come across as mean as that might have sounded. My curiosity about what they were looking at and thinking is genuine; not sarcastic. Also, my statement of how bad it is was meant as "for them", not "by them", meaning the heat they're probably taking from the public is (I'm sure) terrible. And lastly, my point about it being a joke was simply to try to make a bit lighter the bust of the forecast, that's all. None of that was meant to degrade them, especially since I wasn't involved with any forecast for the area and have no idea what the modeling really looked like at a high level of detail. You are right, though, in that they have been pretty off from good verification scores in several events this season, as has also been pointed out by several others. That I DO find some fault with, because there seems to be no "learning" taking place and observance of seasonal tendencies, as James pointed out a while back, as storm tendencies are some of the easiest things to take note of. A great example of this is Binghamton. Every storm we have had this year has featured some sort of enhanced banding feature becoming stationary, or nearly so, around or over that area, enhancing totals there, but leading to sharp drop offs north and west through the Finger Lakes, with moderated cutoffs in snow totals south and east. I'm sure Alex can attest. The same thing has been happening in Red Sox Suck, where the coastal boundary layer has been consistently warmed too much to support snow. If we can see these trends, I don't honestly understand why they don't. Maybe it's because they don't want to stray from majority guidance? I honestly don't know. What I also wished they did, and this goes for ANY/ALL mets in the public eye, is to recap the storm and submit it publicly; what guidance was suggesting, what they were thinking, what they went with and why, and then what happened. We've had this discussion before, but forecasts like this are very hard to counter because everybody is angry that it busted and therefore remember it, and with the public image of our profession so easily biased negative, I feel that people in positions to get explanations like the above out there for people to see and understand what they did and why, which can vary LARGELY between forecasters and agencies, it might help to mitigate some of the false opinions. Other than those two factors, nothing in that previous comment was meant to be derogatory in any way, and I apologize that it came across as such.

[Quietace]

Well what a shock WSW canceled in Red Sox Suck, downgraded to a WWA for 1-4 inches of snow today and with it 34 degrees and just starting to change to snow after noon they'll be lucky to get that.

Gee they had a WSW this morning for 6-10 inches and one yesterday too when they received 0.6 inches. Now who could have seen that coming?

I guess Cantore must be looking like a drowned rat by now!

And the final tally is in from Red Sox Suck. The big winter storm that was predicted to drop up to 10 inches on Red Sox Suck today comes in with a final amount of 1.0 inches.

I think that's huge bust number 4 this year.

And the greatest April Fool's joke ever played by a major government agency is complete!!!! God that's SO bad!! I really wish that we all could have been flies on their wall to see what they were looking at and thinking when they made their forecast. I'd be very curious.

It was a actually fairly difficult storm to forecast. Let's not be too arrogant. Though, that is not to say Tauton has had a good preforming winter. The events have not been rather textbook in these parts. Another tough forecast coming Tuesday for GYX. BL temps have been quite marginal in combination with the high sun angle is adding increased uncertainty with a already spread guidance package in reference to the strength of CAD.

Oh I didn't mean for that to come across as mean as that might have sounded. My curiosity about what they were looking at and thinking is genuine; not sarcastic. Also, my statement of how bad it is was meant as "for them", not "by them", meaning the heat they're probably taking from the public is (I'm sure) terrible. And lastly, my point about it being a joke was simply to try to make a bit lighter the bust of the forecast, that's all. None of that was meant to degrade them, especially since I wasn't involved with any forecast for the area and have no idea what the modeling really looked like at a high level of detail. You are right, though, in that they have been pretty off from good verification scores in several events this season, as has also been pointed out by several others. That I DO find some fault with, because there seems to be no "learning" taking place and observance of seasonal tendencies, as James pointed out a while back, as storm tendencies are some of the easiest things to take note of. A great example of this is Binghamton. Every storm we have had this year has featured some sort of enhanced banding feature becoming stationary, or nearly so, around or over that area, enhancing totals there, but leading to sharp drop offs north and west through the Finger Lakes, with moderated cutoffs in snow totals south and east. I'm sure Alex can attest. The same thing has been happening in Red Sox Suck, where the coastal boundary layer has been consistently warmed too much to support snow. If we can see these trends, I don't honestly understand why they don't. Maybe it's because they don't want to stray from majority guidance? I honestly don't know. What I also wished they did, and this goes for ANY/ALL mets in the public eye, is to recap the storm and submit it publicly; what guidance was suggesting, what they were thinking, what they went with and why, and then what happened. We've had this discussion before, but forecasts like this are very hard to counter because everybody is angry that it busted and therefore remember it, and with the public image of our profession so easily biased negative, I feel that people in positions to get explanations like the above out there for people to see and understand what they did and why, which can vary LARGELY between forecasters and agencies, it might help to mitigate some of the false opinions. Other than those two factors, nothing in that previous comment was meant to be derogatory in any way, and I apologize that it came across as such.

Yesterday deviated from the rest of the missed forecast as a result of how poorly modeled the BL temps were in the BOX area as well as snowfall rates. For example the 0z EURO run yesterday still had 6-8" of snow forecasted for Red Sox Suck. Similarly, the HRRR had them changing over and accumulating for numerous runs into the early morning hours. Yet, BL temps stayed too warm and almost nothing accumulated. I for one even at our latitude try and stay conservative with day time accumulations in APRIL(we had about 12.5 inches of snow from 1.35" LE...in the mountains). For example, once the sun came up yesterday we pretty much stopped accumulating, and temps rose to about 35 degrees even with rates near "a inch a hour". Its something models do not account for and I believe they should have understood(at a further south latitude and closer to a moderating influence both UHI and the ocean) that they would struggle to accumulate. Yet, again we were not there and the uncertainty was noted in the forecast discussion.

[rb924119]

Well what a shock WSW canceled in Red Sox Suck, downgraded to a WWA for 1-4 inches of snow today and with it 34 degrees and just starting to change to snow after noon they'll be lucky to get that.

Gee they had a WSW this morning for 6-10 inches and one yesterday too when they received 0.6 inches. Now who could have seen that coming?

I guess Cantore must be looking like a drowned rat by now!

And the final tally is in from Red Sox Suck. The big winter storm that was predicted to drop up to 10 inches on Red Sox Suck today comes in with a final amount of 1.0 inches.

I think that's huge bust number 4 this year.

And the greatest April Fool's joke ever played by a major government agency is complete!!!! God that's SO bad!! I really wish that we all could have been flies on their wall to see what they were looking at and thinking when they made their forecast. I'd be very curious.

It was a actually fairly difficult storm to forecast. Let's not be too arrogant. Though, that is not to say Tauton has had a good preforming winter. The events have not been rather textbook in these parts. Another tough forecast coming Tuesday for GYX. BL temps have been quite marginal in combination with the high sun angle is adding increased uncertainty with a already spread guidance package in reference to the strength of CAD.

Oh I didn't mean for that to come across as mean as that might have sounded. My curiosity about what they were looking at and thinking is genuine; not sarcastic. Also, my statement of how bad it is was meant as "for them", not "by them", meaning the heat they're probably taking from the public is (I'm sure) terrible. And lastly, my point about it being a joke was simply to try to make a bit lighter the bust of the forecast, that's all. None of that was meant to degrade them, especially since I wasn't involved with any forecast for the area and have no idea what the modeling really looked like at a high level of detail. You are right, though, in that they have been pretty off from good verification scores in several events this season, as has also been pointed out by several others. That I DO find some fault with, because there seems to be no "learning" taking place and observance of seasonal tendencies, as James pointed out a while back, as storm tendencies are some of the easiest things to take note of. A great example of this is Binghamton. Every storm we have had this year has featured some sort of enhanced banding feature becoming stationary, or nearly so, around or over that area, enhancing totals there, but leading to sharp drop offs north and west through the Finger Lakes, with moderated cutoffs in snow totals south and east. I'm sure Alex can attest. The same thing has been happening in Red Sox Suck, where the coastal boundary layer has been consistently warmed too much to support snow. If we can see these trends, I don't honestly understand why they don't. Maybe it's because they don't want to stray from majority guidance? I honestly don't know. What I also wished they did, and this goes for ANY/ALL mets in the public eye, is to recap the storm and submit it publicly; what guidance was suggesting, what they were thinking, what they went with and why, and then what happened. We've had this discussion before, but forecasts like this are very hard to counter because everybody is angry that it busted and therefore remember it, and with the public image of our profession so easily biased negative, I feel that people in positions to get explanations like the above out there for people to see and understand what they did and why, which can vary LARGELY between forecasters and agencies, it might help to mitigate some of the false opinions. Other than those two factors, nothing in that previous comment was meant to be derogatory in any way, and I apologize that it came across as such.

Yesterday deviated from the rest of the missed forecast as a result of how poorly modeled the BL temps were in the BOX area as well as snowfall rates. For example the 0z EURO run yesterday still had 6-8" of snow forecasted for Red Sox Suck. Similarly, the HRRR had them changing over and accumulating for numerous runs into the early morning hours. Yet, BL temps stayed too warm and almost nothing accumulated. I for one even at our latitude try and stay conservative with day time accumulations in APRIL(we had about 12.5 inches of snow from 1.35" LE...in the mountains). For example, once the sun came up yesterday we pretty much stopped accumulating, and temps rose to about 35 degrees even with rates near "a inch a hour". Its something models do not account for and I believe they should have understood(at a further south latitude and closer to a moderating influence both UHI and the ocean) that they would struggle to accumulate. Yet, again we were not there and the uncertainty was noted in the forecast discussion.

GREAT response!! I totally agree with your opinions on the April daytime accumulations. To your point about us not being there, that's why I said I would have liked to have been a fly on their wall, so I could see what they were looking at/thinking. Regarding the mention of uncertainty in the AFD, that's why I wish they would do storm recaps and make them widely available to the public, because those discussions are not read by the large majority of the general public, and it would be a great way of taking responsibility for forecasts (all--successes and failures) while also showing and informing the public beyond just a snowfall map and text forecast. Maybe do a brief clip and submit to large entities like the Weather Channel and AccuWeather, and then to affected news outlets as well, to air as a segment. It would also be great to maybe expand those ideas more for the Weather Briefings, as well. I know they briefly touch on them, but maybe make them more "visible" instead of just one or two lines saying "amounts can vary largely depending on mixing", which to me, makes them seem like they don't know what they're doing (which we know is not true). It's a very fine line that we have to walk while trying to keep things both scientifically accurate AND simple enough for laymen to understand, and I don't know if ANYBODY has found a tried and true method of doing so yet.

[Quietace]

Well what a shock WSW canceled in Red Sox Suck, downgraded to a WWA for 1-4 inches of snow today and with it 34 degrees and just starting to change to snow after noon they'll be lucky to get that.

Gee they had a WSW this morning for 6-10 inches and one yesterday too when they received 0.6 inches. Now who could have seen that coming?

I guess Cantore must be looking like a drowned rat by now!

And the final tally is in from Red Sox Suck. The big winter storm that was predicted to drop up to 10 inches on Red Sox Suck today comes in with a final amount of 1.0 inches.

I think that's huge bust number 4 this year.

And the greatest April Fool's joke ever played by a major government agency is complete!!!! God that's SO bad!! I really wish that we all could have been flies on their wall to see what they were looking at and thinking when they made their forecast. I'd be very curious.

It was a actually fairly difficult storm to forecast. Let's not be too arrogant. Though, that is not to say Tauton has had a good preforming winter. The events have not been rather textbook in these parts. Another tough forecast coming Tuesday for GYX. BL temps have been quite marginal in combination with the high sun angle is adding increased uncertainty with a already spread guidance package in reference to the strength of CAD.

Oh I didn't mean for that to come across as mean as that might have sounded. My curiosity about what they were looking at and thinking is genuine; not sarcastic. Also, my statement of how bad it is was meant as "for them", not "by them", meaning the heat they're probably taking from the public is (I'm sure) terrible. And lastly, my point about it being a joke was simply to try to make a bit lighter the bust of the forecast, that's all. None of that was meant to degrade them, especially since I wasn't involved with any forecast for the area and have no idea what the modeling really looked like at a high level of detail. You are right, though, in that they have been pretty off from good verification scores in several events this season, as has also been pointed out by several others. That I DO find some fault with, because there seems to be no "learning" taking place and observance of seasonal tendencies, as James pointed out a while back, as storm tendencies are some of the easiest things to take note of. A great example of this is Binghamton. Every storm we have had this year has featured some sort of enhanced banding feature becoming stationary, or nearly so, around or over that area, enhancing totals there, but leading to sharp drop offs north and west through the Finger Lakes, with moderated cutoffs in snow totals south and east. I'm sure Alex can attest. The same thing has been happening in Red Sox Suck, where the coastal boundary layer has been consistently warmed too much to support snow. If we can see these trends, I don't honestly understand why they don't. Maybe it's because they don't want to stray from majority guidance? I honestly don't know. What I also wished they did, and this goes for ANY/ALL mets in the public eye, is to recap the storm and submit it publicly; what guidance was suggesting, what they were thinking, what they went with and why, and then what happened. We've had this discussion before, but forecasts like this are very hard to counter because everybody is angry that it busted and therefore remember it, and with the public image of our profession so easily biased negative, I feel that people in positions to get explanations like the above out there for people to see and understand what they did and why, which can vary LARGELY between forecasters and agencies, it might help to mitigate some of the false opinions. Other than those two factors, nothing in that previous comment was meant to be derogatory in any way, and I apologize that it came across as such.

Yesterday deviated from the rest of the missed forecast as a result of how poorly modeled the BL temps were in the BOX area as well as snowfall rates. For example the 0z EURO run yesterday still had 6-8" of snow forecasted for Red Sox Suck. Similarly, the HRRR had them changing over and accumulating for numerous runs into the early morning hours. Yet, BL temps stayed too warm and almost nothing accumulated. I for one even at our latitude try and stay conservative with day time accumulations in APRIL(we had about 12.5 inches of snow from 1.35" LE...in the mountains). For example, once the sun came up yesterday we pretty much stopped accumulating, and temps rose to about 35 degrees even with rates near "a inch a hour". Its something models do not account for and I believe they should have understood(at a further south latitude and closer to a moderating influence both UHI and the ocean) that they would struggle to accumulate. Yet, again we were not there and the uncertainty was noted in the forecast discussion.

GREAT response!! I totally agree with your opinions on the April daytime accumulations. To your point about us not being there, that's why I said I would have liked to have been a fly on their wall, so I could see what they were looking at/thinking. Regarding the mention of uncertainty in the AFD, that's why I wish they would do storm recaps and make them widely available to the public, because those discussions are not read by the large majority of the general public, and it would be a great way of taking responsibility for forecasts (all--successes and failures) while also showing and informing the public beyond just a snowfall map and text forecast. Maybe do a brief clip and submit to large entities like the Weather Channel and AccuWeather, and then to affected news outlets as well, to air as a segment. It would also be great to maybe expand those ideas more for the Weather Briefings, as well. I know they briefly touch on them, but maybe make them more "visible" instead of just one or two lines saying "amounts can vary largely depending on mixing", which to me, makes them seem like they don't know what they're doing (which we know is not true). It's a very fine line that we have to walk while trying to keep things both scientifically accurate AND simple enough for laymen to understand, and I don't know if ANYBODY has found a tried and true method of doing so yet.

I think another problem I have seen first hand is the shear number of products they must push out with so little staff. It would be nice to do all the things we mention but I am not sure they physically can. For example, GYX came and talked to the AMS club. They noted they are 4...4 forecasters short. Another example is BTV. They do not have any meteorological interns(for those reading along that is entry level staff responsible for a variety of tasks) and they are not on the list of WFO's hiring for a intern. There are so many things they want to do but can't as a result of lack of funding for increased labor hours. It is quite frustrating.

[rb924119]

Well what a shock WSW canceled in Red Sox Suck, downgraded to a WWA for 1-4 inches of snow today and with it 34 degrees and just starting to change to snow after noon they'll be lucky to get that.

Gee they had a WSW this morning for 6-10 inches and one yesterday too when they received 0.6 inches. Now who could have seen that coming?

I guess Cantore must be looking like a drowned rat by now!

And the final tally is in from Red Sox Suck. The big winter storm that was predicted to drop up to 10 inches on Red Sox Suck today comes in with a final amount of 1.0 inches.

I think that's huge bust number 4 this year.

And the greatest April Fool's joke ever played by a major government agency is complete!!!! God that's SO bad!! I really wish that we all could have been flies on their wall to see what they were looking at and thinking when they made their forecast. I'd be very curious.

It was a actually fairly difficult storm to forecast. Let's not be too arrogant. Though, that is not to say Tauton has had a good preforming winter. The events have not been rather textbook in these parts. Another tough forecast coming Tuesday for GYX. BL temps have been quite marginal in combination with the high sun angle is adding increased uncertainty with a already spread guidance package in reference to the strength of CAD.

Oh I didn't mean for that to come across as mean as that might have sounded. My curiosity about what they were looking at and thinking is genuine; not sarcastic. Also, my statement of how bad it is was meant as "for them", not "by them", meaning the heat they're probably taking from the public is (I'm sure) terrible. And lastly, my point about it being a joke was simply to try to make a bit lighter the bust of the forecast, that's all. None of that was meant to degrade them, especially since I wasn't involved with any forecast for the area and have no idea what the modeling really looked like at a high level of detail. You are right, though, in that they have been pretty off from good verification scores in several events this season, as has also been pointed out by several others. That I DO find some fault with, because there seems to be no "learning" taking place and observance of seasonal tendencies, as James pointed out a while back, as storm tendencies are some of the easiest things to take note of. A great example of this is Binghamton. Every storm we have had this year has featured some sort of enhanced banding feature becoming stationary, or nearly so, around or over that area, enhancing totals there, but leading to sharp drop offs north and west through the Finger Lakes, with moderated cutoffs in snow totals south and east. I'm sure Alex can attest. The same thing has been happening in Red Sox Suck, where the coastal boundary layer has been consistently warmed too much to support snow. If we can see these trends, I don't honestly understand why they don't. Maybe it's because they don't want to stray from majority guidance? I honestly don't know. What I also wished they did, and this goes for ANY/ALL mets in the public eye, is to recap the storm and submit it publicly; what guidance was suggesting, what they were thinking, what they went with and why, and then what happened. We've had this discussion before, but forecasts like this are very hard to counter because everybody is angry that it busted and therefore remember it, and with the public image of our profession so easily biased negative, I feel that people in positions to get explanations like the above out there for people to see and understand what they did and why, which can vary LARGELY between forecasters and agencies, it might help to mitigate some of the false opinions. Other than those two factors, nothing in that previous comment was meant to be derogatory in any way, and I apologize that it came across as such.

Yesterday deviated from the rest of the missed forecast as a result of how poorly modeled the BL temps were in the BOX area as well as snowfall rates. For example the 0z EURO run yesterday still had 6-8" of snow forecasted for Red Sox Suck. Similarly, the HRRR had them changing over and accumulating for numerous runs into the early morning hours. Yet, BL temps stayed too warm and almost nothing accumulated. I for one even at our latitude try and stay conservative with day time accumulations in APRIL(we had about 12.5 inches of snow from 1.35" LE...in the mountains). For example, once the sun came up yesterday we pretty much stopped accumulating, and temps rose to about 35 degrees even with rates near "a inch a hour". Its something models do not account for and I believe they should have understood(at a further south latitude and closer to a moderating influence both UHI and the ocean) that they would struggle to accumulate. Yet, again we were not there and the uncertainty was noted in the forecast discussion.

GREAT response!! I totally agree with your opinions on the April daytime accumulations. To your point about us not being there, that's why I said I would have liked to have been a fly on their wall, so I could see what they were looking at/thinking. Regarding the mention of uncertainty in the AFD, that's why I wish they would do storm recaps and make them widely available to the public, because those discussions are not read by the large majority of the general public, and it would be a great way of taking responsibility for forecasts (all--successes and failures) while also showing and informing the public beyond just a snowfall map and text forecast. Maybe do a brief clip and submit to large entities like the Weather Channel and AccuWeather, and then to affected news outlets as well, to air as a segment. It would also be great to maybe expand those ideas more for the Weather Briefings, as well. I know they briefly touch on them, but maybe make them more "visible" instead of just one or two lines saying "amounts can vary largely depending on mixing", which to me, makes them seem like they don't know what they're doing (which we know is not true). It's a very fine line that we have to walk while trying to keep things both scientifically accurate AND simple enough for laymen to understand, and I don't know if ANYBODY has found a tried and true method of doing so yet.

I think another problem I have seen first hand is the shear number of products they must push out with so little staff. It would be nice to do all the things we mention but I am not sure they physically can. For example, GYX came and talked to the AMS club. They noted they are 4...4 forecasters short. Another example is BTV. They do not have any meteorological interns(for those reading along that is entry level staff responsible for a variety of tasks) and they are not on the list of WFO's hiring for a intern. There are so many things they want to do but can't as a result of lack of funding for increased labor hours. It is quite frustrating.

That's a great point!! That's why there has been talk (I don't know if you've heard) that they want to consolidate all of the CWA's into regional offices, so that some employee numbers could be trimmed a bit, which would increase the funds allocated per regional office. However, that would only exacerbate the problems, because not only would you have even fewer people working per region, but you would also lose quite a bit of the detail in the forecasts for two reasons; the first being there would be even less time spent per "local" forecast area because of the increase in the office's forecast area, and second, you would have forecasters from up to 1000 miles away forecasting for areas that they have never been exposed to before, and have no functional knowledge of more local biases in given storm types. I have a couple of ideas of how some of these issues could be mitigated, such as trimming the number of "executive" employees in the CWA offices (essentially trim the political hierarchy) so that there are more actual forecasters versus overseers, as well as trimming down the salaries of what "executive" employees are left a bit, but again, that would only help to mitigate some of the problems, and not eliminate them completely. However, this is getting into politics, and I don't really want to go down that road, so I'll stop here lmao

[Quietace]

Well what a shock WSW canceled in Red Sox Suck, downgraded to a WWA for 1-4 inches of snow today and with it 34 degrees and just starting to change to snow after noon they'll be lucky to get that.

Gee they had a WSW this morning for 6-10 inches and one yesterday too when they received 0.6 inches. Now who could have seen that coming?

I guess Cantore must be looking like a drowned rat by now!

And the final tally is in from Red Sox Suck. The big winter storm that was predicted to drop up to 10 inches on Red Sox Suck today comes in with a final amount of 1.0 inches.

I think that's huge bust number 4 this year.

And the greatest April Fool's joke ever played by a major government agency is complete!!!! God that's SO bad!! I really wish that we all could have been flies on their wall to see what they were looking at and thinking when they made their forecast. I'd be very curious.

It was a actually fairly difficult storm to forecast. Let's not be too arrogant. Though, that is not to say Tauton has had a good preforming winter. The events have not been rather textbook in these parts. Another tough forecast coming Tuesday for GYX. BL temps have been quite marginal in combination with the high sun angle is adding increased uncertainty with a already spread guidance package in reference to the strength of CAD.

Oh I didn't mean for that to come across as mean as that might have sounded. My curiosity about what they were looking at and thinking is genuine; not sarcastic. Also, my statement of how bad it is was meant as "for them", not "by them", meaning the heat they're probably taking from the public is (I'm sure) terrible. And lastly, my point about it being a joke was simply to try to make a bit lighter the bust of the forecast, that's all. None of that was meant to degrade them, especially since I wasn't involved with any forecast for the area and have no idea what the modeling really looked like at a high level of detail. You are right, though, in that they have been pretty off from good verification scores in several events this season, as has also been pointed out by several others. That I DO find some fault with, because there seems to be no "learning" taking place and observance of seasonal tendencies, as James pointed out a while back, as storm tendencies are some of the easiest things to take note of. A great example of this is Binghamton. Every storm we have had this year has featured some sort of enhanced banding feature becoming stationary, or nearly so, around or over that area, enhancing totals there, but leading to sharp drop offs north and west through the Finger Lakes, with moderated cutoffs in snow totals south and east. I'm sure Alex can attest. The same thing has been happening in Red Sox Suck, where the coastal boundary layer has been consistently warmed too much to support snow. If we can see these trends, I don't honestly understand why they don't. Maybe it's because they don't want to stray from majority guidance? I honestly don't know. What I also wished they did, and this goes for ANY/ALL mets in the public eye, is to recap the storm and submit it publicly; what guidance was suggesting, what they were thinking, what they went with and why, and then what happened. We've had this discussion before, but forecasts like this are very hard to counter because everybody is angry that it busted and therefore remember it, and with the public image of our profession so easily biased negative, I feel that people in positions to get explanations like the above out there for people to see and understand what they did and why, which can vary LARGELY between forecasters and agencies, it might help to mitigate some of the false opinions. Other than those two factors, nothing in that previous comment was meant to be derogatory in any way, and I apologize that it came across as such.

Yesterday deviated from the rest of the missed forecast as a result of how poorly modeled the BL temps were in the BOX area as well as snowfall rates. For example the 0z EURO run yesterday still had 6-8" of snow forecasted for Red Sox Suck. Similarly, the HRRR had them changing over and accumulating for numerous runs into the early morning hours. Yet, BL temps stayed too warm and almost nothing accumulated. I for one even at our latitude try and stay conservative with day time accumulations in APRIL(we had about 12.5 inches of snow from 1.35" LE...in the mountains). For example, once the sun came up yesterday we pretty much stopped accumulating, and temps rose to about 35 degrees even with rates near "a inch a hour". Its something models do not account for and I believe they should have understood(at a further south latitude and closer to a moderating influence both UHI and the ocean) that they would struggle to accumulate. Yet, again we were not there and the uncertainty was noted in the forecast discussion.

GREAT response!! I totally agree with your opinions on the April daytime accumulations. To your point about us not being there, that's why I said I would have liked to have been a fly on their wall, so I could see what they were looking at/thinking. Regarding the mention of uncertainty in the AFD, that's why I wish they would do storm recaps and make them widely available to the public, because those discussions are not read by the large majority of the general public, and it would be a great way of taking responsibility for forecasts (all--successes and failures) while also showing and informing the public beyond just a snowfall map and text forecast. Maybe do a brief clip and submit to large entities like the Weather Channel and AccuWeather, and then to affected news outlets as well, to air as a segment. It would also be great to maybe expand those ideas more for the Weather Briefings, as well. I know they briefly touch on them, but maybe make them more "visible" instead of just one or two lines saying "amounts can vary largely depending on mixing", which to me, makes them seem like they don't know what they're doing (which we know is not true). It's a very fine line that we have to walk while trying to keep things both scientifically accurate AND simple enough for laymen to understand, and I don't know if ANYBODY has found a tried and true method of doing so yet.

I think another problem I have seen first hand is the shear number of products they must push out with so little staff. It would be nice to do all the things we mention but I am not sure they physically can. For example, GYX came and talked to the AMS club. They noted they are 4...4 forecasters short. Another example is BTV. They do not have any meteorological interns(for those reading along that is entry level staff responsible for a variety of tasks) and they are not on the list of WFO's hiring for a intern. There are so many things they want to do but can't as a result of lack of funding for increased labor hours. It is quite frustrating.

That's a great point!! That's why there has been talk (I don't know if you've heard) that they want to consolidate all of the CWA's into regional offices, so that some employee numbers could be trimmed a bit, which would increase the funds allocated per regional office. However, that would only exacerbate the problems, because not only would you have even fewer people working per region, but you would also lose quite a bit of the detail in the forecasts for two reasons; the first being there would be even less time spent per "local" forecast area because of the increase in the office's forecast area, and second, you would have forecasters from up to 1000 miles away forecasting for areas that they have never been exposed to before, and have no functional knowledge of more local biases in given storm types. I have a couple of ideas of how some of these issues could be mitigated, such as trimming the number of "executive" employees in the CWA offices (essentially trim the political hierarchy) so that there are more actual forecasters versus overseers, as well as trimming down the salaries of what "executive" employees are left a bit, but again, that would only help to mitigate some of the problems, and not eliminate them completely. However, this is getting into politics, and I don't really want to go down that road, so I'll stop here lmao

I agree and disagree at some points. I am sure we will have time one day to discuss this. I will find out more this summer about day to day operations and such.

[Math23x7]

Ryan and rb, the fact that you have so many quotes in your latest posts means that the original post by CP has rows that are small. And on my phone, when I'm on vertical, CP's post has one letter per row, that's right it would read like this:

W
e
l
l

w
h
a
t

a

s
h
o
c
k

W
S
W

c
a
n
c
e
l
e
d

f
o
r

and so on, you get the idea.

[mikeypizano]

The weather was great today so I decided to take out the bow. Not to bad of a grouping since I haven't shot in awhile.

[1190ftalt]

The weather was great today so I decided to take out the bow. Not to bad of a grouping since I haven't shot in awhile.

Actually it depends where on the target you are shooting and from what distance ( 20 Yds or 50 Yds away )if your aiming at the middle bullseye your way left and all over the place top to bottom , a good group of 2 arrows you want them kissing each other ! When I shoot I aim at the different circles on each shot so you don't damage your arrows , the ones you are shooting are carbons and if you hit one or brush one you are out about 10 bucks ( knocks, veins and carbon shaft ). What kind of bow are you shooting, almost looks like those are bolts and you are shooting a crossbow and not a bow, Good Luck !

[docstox12]

The weather was great today so I decided to take out the bow. Not to bad of a grouping since I haven't shot in awhile.

Wow, I'm sure glad my ex wife didn't take archery lessons from you 30 years ago!

[Guest]

While the weather here has been good enough, I already miss tracking snow storms.

[mikeypizano]

The weather was great today so I decided to take out the bow. Not to bad of a grouping since I haven't shot in awhile.

Actually it depends where on the target you are shooting and from what distance ( 20 Yds or 50 Yds away )if your aiming at the middle bullseye your way left and all over the place top to bottom , a good group of 2 arrows you want them kissing each other ! When I shoot I aim at the different circles on each shot so you don't damage your arrows , the ones you are shooting are carbons and if you hit one or brush one you are out about 10 bucks ( knocks, veins and carbon shaft ). What kind of bow are you shooting, almost looks like those are bolts and you are shooting a crossbow and not a bow, Good Luck !

These are 5 dollar Carbon Express shafts from Walmart. I am shooting at 20 yards, which I think should be my middle pin, and aiming at the center. I need to resight it in really. The bow is a PSE DropTine from Dicks Sporting Goods.

The weather was great today so I decided to take out the bow. Not to bad of a grouping since I haven't shot in awhile.

Wow, I'm sure glad my ex wife didn't take archery lessons from you 30 years ago!

Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

[1190ftalt]

The weather was great today so I decided to take out the bow. Not to bad of a grouping since I haven't shot in awhile.

Actually it depends where on the target you are shooting and from what distance ( 20 Yds or 50 Yds away )if your aiming at the middle bullseye your way left and all over the place top to bottom , a good group of 2 arrows you want them kissing each other ! When I shoot I aim at the different circles on each shot so you don't damage your arrows , the ones you are shooting are carbons and if you hit one or brush one you are out about 10 bucks ( knocks, veins and carbon shaft ). What kind of bow are you shooting, almost looks like those are bolts and you are shooting a crossbow and not a bow, Good Luck !

These are 5 dollar Carbon Express shafts from Walmart. I am shooting at 20 yards, which I think should be my middle pin, and aiming at the center. I need to resight it in really. The bow is a PSE DropTine from Dicks Sporting Goods.

The weather was great today so I decided to take out the bow. Not to bad of a grouping since I haven't shot in awhile.

Wow, I'm sure glad my ex wife didn't take archery lessons from you 30 years ago!

Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

Your 0 -20 yd pin is always your top pin, then usually 10 Yds back each pin, good luck. !

[Dunnzoo]

While the weather here has been good enough, I already miss tracking snow storms.

Me too, but now I'm watching the forecasts for Mets games! Going again Friday.

[mikeypizano]

I think I had my pins set to 10-20-30 but i cant remember now...

[Quietace]

I sign up for the fall semester of my senior year Monday. Jeez....

[mikeypizano]

Cut the first yard of the season today!

[weatherwatchermom]

I sign up for the fall semester of my senior year Monday. Jeez....

I can't....my son signed up for specials for middle school....just going toooooo fast for me....as. for you..you are going into sr year?? Did you not start college yesterday????

[Quietace]

I sign up for the fall semester of my senior year Monday. Jeez....

I can't....my son signed up for specials for middle school....just going toooooo fast for me....as. for you..you are going into sr year?? Did you not start college yesterday????

It feels like it

[Grselig]

part of me: Today (Sunday) is the nicest day of the year!!!
The other me: Today sucks. It's sunny and warm. It has snowed in April before!!!!! Why not now?????

[RJB8525]

banter should be taken down on days like today

[Math23x7]

We all know this will not happen, but it makes great eye candy for those of you who still have an appetite for snow in mid-late April

[Frank_Wx]

Oh boy, the Canadian is smoking the good stuff again

[rb924119]

Oh boy, the Canadian is smoking the good stuff again

Even a broken clock is right twice a day. It got the sleet storm perfect, so maybe this could be it's second opportunity lmaoooook

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