Atmosphere Comparison

[Jim]

The endless chatter of weather.

[outdoor_lover]

Someone was there when they opened the Gates even more on the 28th... The Wildflowers are going nuts up there right now so there's been people up there all week...
At 10K CFS http://www.capturemyarizona.com/photos/ ... 2017-03-02
And then Apparently they opened the Gates more to 50K CFS http://www.capturemyarizona.com/photos/ ... 2017-03-02

Must have been temporary if they are only running 14, 000 now....

[chumley]

Cool photos!

Both those pictures show the exact same flow from a different angle. The dam gates are in the same place too.
I spoke with SRP engineers when I was out there last week. The release is automated. It seems unlikely that it would spike to 50k for a few hours.
Daily release stats are available here:
http://data.hydrometdataservice.info/dwr/default.aspx

[Nighthiker]

Deer and Rye Creek were flowing pretty good today, almost use a surf board.

[SuperstitionGuy]

Phoenix record high of 92 degrees Monday March 13, 2017 tied previous 1972 record.

[chumley]

Wow, the media machine in the I-95 corridor this morning is really working to make it seem like they didn't overreact or get the forecast so wrong.

It seems like this kind of thing has been happening there for decades. Forecast for snowpocaplypse and then either it "goes out to sea" or shifts inland and snow falls as rain.

A slight change in the forecast shouldn't be such a big deal, but the plans might have been overdone. Eight THOUSAND airline flights were canceled ahead of time! Schools, businesses, tourist attractions, etc. closed.

And still I'd prefer that over this week in the 90s here.

[flagscott]

Wow, the media machine in the I-95 corridor this morning is really working to make it seem like they didn't overreact or get the forecast so wrong.

It seems like this kind of thing has been happening there for decades. Forecast for snowpocaplypse and then either it "goes out to sea" or shifts inland and snow falls as rain.

A slight change in the forecast shouldn't be such a big deal, but the plans might have been overdone. Eight THOUSAND airline flights were canceled ahead of time! Schools, businesses, tourist attractions, etc. closed.

And still I'd prefer that over this week in the 90s here.

This is a pretty big oversimplification. A huge city like New York, dependent on public transportation, cannot wait until the last minute to decide to shut down the MTA (or at least the above-ground part). A last-minute shutdown could leave thousands of people stranded. You can't have people commuting into Manhattan from the burbs and the outer boroughs adnd then not give them a way home. Ditto for the flights--because a single cancellation can ripple through the system, cancelling ahead of time can produce fewer problems than waiting until the last minute. So cancellations ahead of time were the smartest way to go. The people in charge deserve praise for getting this right.

And as for forecast accuracy, I lived in New England for years, and it's well known that small shifts in storm track can be the difference between a few flurries and a blizzard. I looked at the forecast discussions that NWS was putting out yesterday, and they recognized that things might change. If the media chose to run with the worst-case scenario, that's what they do, but forecasters will be the first to admit that snow totals are very difficult to predict.

Meanwhile, a lot of the Northeast is getting the predicted 20+" of snow--it's just not the coastal cities.

[chumley]

@flagscott
Thank you for explaining that.

[FOTG]

@chumley

[big_load]

Wow, the media machine in the I-95 corridor this morning is really working to make it seem like they didn't overreact or get the forecast so wrong.

They weren't far wrong, though. Manhattan itself is getting off lightly because of more rain in the mix, but Newark and JFK are getting enough to warrant the cancellations, especially with the wind. In the northwest corner, we have about 16" of heavy, wet snow thus far and it will snow steadily until tomorrow morning. (In the Sunday forecast, we were on the boundary between the 6"-12" zone and the 12"-18" zone. Yesterday they upped us to about 20", which it could still hit.)

We have 4.5 person-hours of shoveling done so far. Probably another nine to go.

[chumley]

@big_load
I figured you were getting the brunt of it ... as are my parents. Have fun shoveling

[chumley]

Before the first snow fell, federal meteorologists realized there was a good chance the late-winter storm wasn't going to produce giant snow totals in big Northeast cities as predicted.

But they didn't change their forecasts because they said they didn't want to confuse the public.

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireSt ... t-46130570

I feel like "confuse the public" is what happens when you announce that something is going to happen when you know it won't actually happen.

Isn't that the definition of #fakenews?

[flagscott]

Before the first snow fell, federal meteorologists realized there was a good chance the late-winter storm wasn't going to produce giant snow totals in big Northeast cities as predicted.

But they didn't change their forecasts because they said they didn't want to confuse the public.

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireSt ... t-46130570

I feel like "confuse the public" is what happens when you announce that something is going to happen when you know it won't actually happen.

Isn't that the definition of #fakenews?

I explained this above. If the updated forecast had turned out to be wrong (it was still just a forecast--they are probabilistic, not absolute, as mentioned in the article) and the full on storm had hit New York when people were expecting just a few inches, we probably would ended up with dozens of casualties and thousands of people stranded. This was the precautionary route, and it was the right way to go.

And let's not forget that the forecast was accurate just a bit further inland. There were 20" of snow within 10 miles of NYC.

What's that phrase? Better safe than something?...can't recall how it ends.

[big_load]

Nine person-hours of shoveling down. Maybe only two more to go, more if there's much further accumulation. Three times the plows created a 3' high, 5' wide wall of densely compacted snow across the bottom of the driveway. Most local schools will be closed tomorrow, too. Most schools to the east will have delayed openings.

[cactuscat]

Nine person-hours of shoveling down. Maybe only two more to go, more if there's much further accumulation.

Dude.

[big_load]

Nine person-hours of shoveling down. Maybe only two more to go, more if there's much further accumulation.

Dude.

Mrs. big_load did half of it. She's tough as nails when it counts.

[chumley]

And let's not forget that the forecast was accurate just a bit further inland.

If the forecast for Phoenix ends up happening in Tucson, it doesn't make the forecast accurate in Tucson. It makes the forecast wrong. In both places.

A meteorologist from Southern Connecticut Weather posted a refreshing recap:

While not the worst bust I've ever seen, this was a busted forecast, no doubt about it. We were definitely too high for most folks, and the verification score on our map won't be pretty. We'll do a more detailed postmortem later in the week to explain what happened, but basically, the bust came down to three factors.

-Less QPF than modeled. Model consensus was remarkable for 2"+ of QPF across the state, which would have allowed for those widespread double digit totals to take place even with the mixing.

-A further western track than expected; when we did our map last night, we were hedging that the west trend from the 12z suite would reverse a bit. Instead, it continued west, and the result was that the state mixed much sooner than expected, even before the warmest of the guidance.

-Poor snow ratios due to dry air and suboptimal lift; this was another red flag that we(and most everyone else) somewhat ignored due to the modeled QPF, and we got burned as a result. Important lesson for us as forecasters to not buy into an extreme solution without the synoptics to back it up.

[cactuscat]

@big_load
I figured that by your use of "person-hours" - but still! I don't think I shoveled a total of 9 hours in two entire winters at the South Rim ... don't know how you guys back east do it!

[SuperstitionGuy]

Mrs. big_load did half of it. She's tough as nails when it counts

How often do you have to compete with the city snow plow filling in what you have already shoveled out?

[big_load]

Mrs. big_load did half of it. She's tough as nails when it counts

How often do you have to compete with the city snow plow filling in what you have already shoveled out?

At least once any time it snows more than 4", and roughly once per every 4"-6" in snowfall event, depending on how many passes it takes them to clear the road. I don't begrudge the inconvenience, though. Snow removal is the most efficient public service we have, and they work ridiculous shifts on steep hills and narrow, winding roads. The township crews were out for 19 hours in this storm.

I'm looking forward to my next AZ/UT trip, so I can complain about the heat for a change.

[FOTG]

@chumley
Seems you are not the only one wondering about this swing and a miss by the weathermen...

The National Weather Service is denying accusations it knowingly misled the public with its blizzard forecasts this week. On Monday, before the storm hit the East Coast, the agency forecasted up to a foot and a half of snow in New York, but only 7.6 inches fell. In Boston up to a foot was predicted but only 6.6 inches hit the ground. In the nation’s capital, up to eight inches were forecasted, and only about three inches actually fell.

“I think there’s some room for discussion whether they should have been a little more forthright,” Robinson said. New York City virtually shut down after some forecasts called for as much as two feet of snow. The storm dumped only about eight inches. The lost business and productivity in the northeast cost $2 billion to $3 billion, according to Moody’s Analytics.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/did-na ... li=BBnb7Kz