May 2018 Observations & Discussions

rb924119 wrote:Scott!!! Well now it's officially a tracking party! Haha

Quietace wrote:This is a public service announcement.
The GFS schemes are grossly inadequate for forecasting TC's. The FV3 is running more time steps, with the same resolution and physics as the OP GFS currently. This leads to the same errors, which can be exasperated. The GFS will show a TC past day 10 for the rest of the season with little temporal movement towards the near term. This is because it is a systematic error within itself. Thus, do not get worked up over it, and secondly, do not believe it.  
The Caribbean is leaning more favorable in the 10-15 day period for some sort of cyclogeneis. However, there is little certainty if it will occur, and if it does, what will come of it. Once thing is for certain, the GFS is not forming that TC because of pattern progression.

rb924119 wrote:

Quietace wrote:This is a public service announcement.
The GFS schemes are grossly inadequate for forecasting TC's. The FV3 is running more time steps, with the same resolution and physics as the OP GFS currently. This leads to the same errors, which can be exasperated. The GFS will show a TC past day 10 for the rest of the season with little temporal movement towards the near term. This is because it is a systematic error within itself. Thus, do not get worked up over it, and secondly, do not believe it.  
The Caribbean is leaning more favorable in the 10-15 day period for some sort of cyclogeneis. However, there is little certainty if it will occur, and if it does, what will come of it. Once thing is for certain, the GFS is not forming that TC because of pattern progression.

Thanks for the Intel, Ryan!!! I haven't had a chance to delve into the differences, so your information is much appreciated. However, I must respectfully disagree, but only in this certain case, as the solutions those two models, and now the ICON, CMC to a degree, and the CFSV2 are all showing DO fit the pattern profession; and they fit it quite well in my humble opinion. Obviously, as you stated, it's far from certain, but I'm certainly expecting it to play out, and have for some time given the factors in play. In a vast majority of other instances, you are most certainly correct in stating that the GFS is horrible with tropics, as well as pretty much most everything else aha

Quietace wrote:

rb924119 wrote:

Quietace wrote:This is a public service announcement.
The GFS schemes are grossly inadequate for forecasting TC's. The FV3 is running more time steps, with the same resolution and physics as the OP GFS currently. This leads to the same errors, which can be exasperated. The GFS will show a TC past day 10 for the rest of the season with little temporal movement towards the near term. This is because it is a systematic error within itself. Thus, do not get worked up over it, and secondly, do not believe it.  
The Caribbean is leaning more favorable in the 10-15 day period for some sort of cyclogeneis. However, there is little certainty if it will occur, and if it does, what will come of it. Once thing is for certain, the GFS is not forming that TC because of pattern progression.

Thanks for the Intel, Ryan!!! I haven't had a chance to delve into the differences, so your information is much appreciated. However, I must respectfully disagree, but only in this certain case, as the solutions those two models, and now the ICON, CMC to a degree, and the CFSV2 are all showing DO fit the pattern profession; and they fit it quite well in my humble opinion. Obviously, as you stated, it's far from certain, but I'm certainly expecting it to play out, and have for some time given the factors in play. In a vast majority of other instances, you are most certainly correct in stating that the GFS is horrible with tropics, as well as pretty much most everything else aha

No model is remotely close to the GFS's solution as a result of its poor TC handling. I am not stating that a low will not form, or that it is not favorable. I previously stated the region was favorable for cyclogenesis. I am simply stating that the GFS is forming the low, and then intensifying it, as a result of that poor TC handling. If it was pattern driven (In the model itself), it would not still be at 384 hours. It is no consolation that the EC and its ensembles also are rather weak with it, as is the rest of guidance. I do not have time to go back and forth, but we will see how this pans out over the next few days. All the best RB!

rb924119 wrote:I honestly haven't been paying too much attention these last couple weeks. I've been so busy doing firewood on my weekends and then working I haven't much time to actually sit down and look. That said, I DO think the MJO is making itself known as the 6-10 day forecasts appear to be backing down from their corresponding temperature forecasts in the 10-15 over the last several days of cycles. Again, I cannot concretely confirm or deny that, though, as I haven't actually sat down and done "one-to-one" comparisons. I WILL say I'm still very anxious to see if something tropical (or sub-tropical) tries popping once the MJO rolls into Phase 2, as I believe that phase corresponds very well to development in the Gulf and along and/or just offshore of the Southeast coast, as well as the time-mean surface pressures remaining higher than normal across the east-central U.S. thanks to anomalous soil moisture content leading to cooler than average surface temperatures and resultant higher pressure then aided by the MJO Phase 2 (probably should confirm that, but I'm pretty sure I remember reading a paper or two on the MJO a while back......my memory is shotty AT BEST, though so take that with extreme caution hahahaha)

As a follow-up, I like the period from ~May 15th through ~May 25th for our first true tropical/sub-tropical system to develop either in the western/northwestern Caribbean, Gulf, and or extreme western Atlantic. The reasons were generally discussed above, but I also like the look of -AO and negative SOI to assist penetrating, albeit transient troughs cutting through the eastern CONUS. This will help supply the surface ridging and aid in enhanced lower-level convergence along and near the coasts. I'm officially on the board with a forecast, so let's see how this pans out!!! Haha any thoughts?

A trough split will be the most likely culprit that then feeds back close to land rather than a classic tropical system that develops from scratch.

sroc4 wrote:

rb924119 wrote:I honestly haven't been paying too much attention these last couple weeks. I've been so busy doing firewood on my weekends and then working I haven't much time to actually sit down and look. That said, I DO think the MJO is making itself known as the 6-10 day forecasts appear to be backing down from their corresponding temperature forecasts in the 10-15 over the last several days of cycles. Again, I cannot concretely confirm or deny that, though, as I haven't actually sat down and done "one-to-one" comparisons. I WILL say I'm still very anxious to see if something tropical (or sub-tropical) tries popping once the MJO rolls into Phase 2, as I believe that phase corresponds very well to development in the Gulf and along and/or just offshore of the Southeast coast, as well as the time-mean surface pressures remaining higher than normal across the east-central U.S. thanks to anomalous soil moisture content leading to cooler than average surface temperatures and resultant higher pressure then aided by the MJO Phase 2 (probably should confirm that, but I'm pretty sure I remember reading a paper or two on the MJO a while back......my memory is shotty AT BEST, though so take that with extreme caution hahahaha)

As a follow-up, I like the period from ~May 15th through ~May 25th for our first true tropical/sub-tropical system to develop either in the western/northwestern Caribbean, Gulf, and or extreme western Atlantic. The reasons were generally discussed above, but I also like the look of -AO and negative SOI to assist penetrating, albeit transient troughs cutting through the eastern CONUS. This will help supply the surface ridging and aid in enhanced lower-level convergence along and near the coasts. I'm officially on the board with a forecast, so let's see how this pans out!!! Haha any thoughts?

A trough split will be the most likely culprit that then feeds back close to land rather than a classic tropical system that develops from scratch.

From May 7th:

Love it!

SoulSingMG wrote:JUST IN. Holy crap. It is not often you see "moderate" around here.