• After witnessing the continued decrease of involvement in the SpotterNetwork staff in serving SN members with troubleshooting issues recently, I have unilaterally decided to terminate the relationship between SpotterNetwork's support and Stormtrack. I have witnessed multiple users unable to receive support weeks after initiating help threads on the forum. I find this lack of response from SpotterNetwork officials disappointing and a failure to hold up their end of the agreement that was made years ago, before I took over management of this site. In my opinion, having Stormtrack users sit and wait for so long to receive help on SpotterNetwork issues on the Stormtrack forums reflects poorly not only on SpotterNetwork, but on Stormtrack and (by association) me as well. Since the issue has not been satisfactorily addressed, I no longer wish for the Stormtrack forum to be associated with SpotterNetwork.

    I apologize to those who continue to have issues with the service and continue to see their issues left unaddressed. Please understand that the connection between ST and SN was put in place long before I had any say over it. But now that I am the "captain of this ship," it is within my right (nay, duty) to make adjustments as I see necessary. Ending this relationship is such an adjustment.

    For those who continue to need help, I recommend navigating a web browswer to SpotterNetwork's About page, and seeking the individuals listed on that page for all further inquiries about SpotterNetwork.

    From this moment forward, the SpotterNetwork sub-forum has been hidden/deleted and there will be no assurance that any SpotterNetwork issues brought up in any of Stormtrack's other sub-forums will be addressed. Do not rely on Stormtrack for help with SpotterNetwork issues.

    Sincerely, Jeff D.

Latest Eastern Winter Storm

  • Thread starter Thread starter Mike Smith
  • Start date Start date
A perfect example of how the models and data that forces them are imperfect. I would certainly support the addition of standard sounding sites (why not give every NWS office in the country one?). The ICs/LBCs in NWP models can certainly use some work, especially now that many of the models are getting into grid spacings that well exceed that of the observation networks. I know the GFS, ECMWF, and FIM for example are run at "lower resolutions" around 30 km, but the density of stations in the surface observing network is hardly that fine. How can one expect a 12, 4, 1 km etc. model to make an accurate forecast when the data used to feed it can't resolve features that the model is designed to?
 
If permanent sounding stations are too expensive, I would like to see the NOAA jet run dropsondes into these storms starting about 72 hours out (trying to balance costs versus benefit). The boost to the economy from better forecasts would FAR exceed the cost of the jet runs. In this case, we would want to sample the northeast Gulf (moisture content) and the coastal Atlantic. Even if they could only do it for one data period a day (00Z?), it would be very helpful.
 
There's a pretty good thread over at the American Forums, including the thoughts and facts from dtk, who is a modeler at NCEP.

http://www.americanwx.com/bb/index.php?/topic/8746-why-are-models-so-good/

The uncertainty with this upcoming system is certainly great, but even that wording doesn't lend to just how significantly diverse the model solutions are to each other as well as to themselves on a run-to-run comparison, even within the 72-hour time-frame. Tomorrow will be our first look as to what is more likely to happen, and that's when you'll start to see the first real snowfall predictions coming out. This winter has certainly been a challenging one for East Coast forecasters.
 
I heard a few years ago that someone was planning on using the commercial jet industry to get upper-air observations by putting instruments on them. With there being hundreds of planes at various levels in the atmosphere and over various locations of the U.S. each day, it would be a cheaper way of making use of an established system to improve observation density. Not sure what became of that, but I haven't seen any public data streams go up.
 
I heard a few years ago that someone was planning on using the commercial jet industry to get upper-air observations by putting instruments on them. With there being hundreds of planes at various levels in the atmosphere and over various locations of the U.S. each day, it would be a cheaper way of making use of an established system to improve observation density. Not sure what became of that, but I haven't seen any public data streams go up.
Paraphrasing some discussion from what I read about a month ago, there is instrumentation aboard some commercial aircraft (located at the nose of the aircraft), maybe more so on transcontinental flights than others. I'm not sure what percentage of commercial airliners have the instrumentation (of which some have more and some have less), but it's certainly out there, and the data collected from these instruments are included in the model initializations.
 
NOAA is going to fly a recon mission tonight into the Gulf to help initialize the 00Z models and hopefully give us a great model run on the vexing East Coast storm. Thanks, NOAA.
 
This season has made me a believer in the 40/70 benchmark. Like everyone else I've watched the models give hopelessly differing indications of total snowfall for southern New England for this system... First several feet, then almost nothing, then rain and sleet, etc, and yet from the beginning the progged track of the storm has never really deviated much from the 40/70 benchmark, which historically means a big snowfall for the area. Currently we've had heavy snow all morning and are expecting over a foot when it ends here in New Haven, even though just yesterday the main snow was supposed to hold off till the evening and totals were to be far less... It ain't over yet, but still, score one for "The Benchmark", I'd say.
 
Getting the bulls eye attm. Thundersnow FT"MF"W!

Just pissed my subie is out of order...."Naaah AWD for youuuuu"! say the snow gods. PT convertible it will be this time around....arrrgggg.
 
This season has made me a believer in the 40/70 benchmark. Like everyone else I've watched the models give hopelessly differing indications of total snowfall for southern New England for this system... First several feet, then almost nothing, then rain and sleet, etc, and yet from the beginning the progged track of the storm has never really deviated much from the 40/70 benchmark, which historically means a big snowfall for the area. Currently we've had heavy snow all morning and are expecting over a foot when it ends here in New Haven, even though just yesterday the main snow was supposed to hold off till the evening and totals were to be far less... It ain't over yet, but still, score one for "The Benchmark", I'd say.

We got that pre-storm snow down in Darien too (probably 2-3 from the morning shot). The main event is finally starting here after some light freezing drizzle in the late afternoon and a lull for most of the day. The radar is looking very impressive at the moment, hope it stays filled in for the next 6+ hours.
 
We got that pre-storm snow down in Darien too (probably 2-3 from the morning shot). The main event is finally starting here after some light freezing drizzle in the late afternoon and a lull for most of the day. The radar is looking very impressive at the moment, hope it stays filled in for the next 6+ hours.

Current band along the CT coast looking positively apocalyptic on radar right now. If it stays like that we'll get the 14" now forecast easily, and then some. Outside my window the snow is so intense I can barely see across the street... It's coming down so thick it looks like you could stick your hand out in mid-air, make a fist, and you'd have an instant snowball. Probably this current intense band won't last all that long, but at this rate it won't have to. Very impressive snowfall. Haven't heard any thunder yet, but one can hope...
 
More than 500,000 homes and businesses without power in Metro D.C. being attributed to the lightning. Wow.
 
More than 500,000 homes and businesses without power in Metro D.C. being attributed to the lightning. Wow.

Yup...we pay some of the highest rates (PEPCO) at yet get to enjoy 75% more outages than almost all other metro areas. (I'm sure LA is the top one) Had a short outage (~2 minutes) but down county...when I stopped briefly...was out everywhere. Of course that area is the 'older' neighborhoods with telephone/power poles still above ground.

Mike...do you have clients out this way?

I enjoyed a short evening in the snow. As stated, the Subaru was not ready to go (wrong radiator ordered...so without a means of cooling the engine kinda sucks). I used the PT Cruiser convertible instead, which did well. Funny thing was...I saw A LOT of Subaru cars stuck (AWD is only as good as the driver skills are I guess). Only thing I didn't like is either a) the PT's ABS wasn't working....or I'm an idiot and thought it had it when it doesn't.

I couldn't 'earn' a lot today...so instead I helped other drivers including a truck driver that was stuck. Took about two hours of good digging (only use real shovels...not 'snow' shovels) and got him on his way back to Newport News, VA.

The worse part was...dead tired (LOL...although not enough to post this still...apparently) came home to find the contracted company did NOT plow the neighborhood at all. Not one pass. Spent another 30 minutes documenting the failure (the one time 30 second exposure pictures are actually annoying) to give to the board...and push for them to actually negotiate a refund.
 
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