Superstorm Sandy and US weather Forecasting Improvements

[Michael Snyder]

The link is from Cliff Mass prof. University of WA in Seattle.

http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/

So what do you guys make of his claim about the USA having more computing power than the ECWMF?

It also seems like the details on how to use the computing power is still up for grabs.
Can anyone shed any more details on how this is going to be used?

 

[Jeff Duda]

I see no reason to doubt it. I think the numbers are public information.

More generally, I have heard from someone who works at NCEP that a number of people disagree with Cliff Mass, and some people outright detest him. They have a nickname for him (think of the last three letters of his last name). As you can tell from reading the blog post, he is highly opinionated, but he's also very knowledgeable and accomplished, and I don't think he's wrong about most of what he says.

 

[rdale]

The USA has more computer power - but the way it's used can be a bit wasteful. On the other hand, the ECMWF only does medium-long range forecasting, so it's not a surprise that their medium-long range forecasting blows away the GFS.

And next year the ECMWF gets a supercomputer faster than ours so in a few years expect another NWS press release

 

[Michael Snyder]

I see no reason to doubt it. I think the numbers are public information.

More generally, I have heard from someone who works at NCEP that a number of people disagree with Cliff Mass, and some people outright detest him. They have a nickname for him (think of the last three letters of his last name). As you can tell from reading the blog post, he is highly opinionated, but he's also very knowledgeable and accomplished, and I don't think he's wrong about most of what he says.

I talk to him via email and on his blog from time to time and we do get into it sometimes also, so yea I know what you mean.

He also has it out for the US Drought monitor, and in a big way.
He also obviously agrees with climate change, but he has some interesting views on the media coverage of it.

 

[rdale]

Oh the drought monitor is a joke... Especially the terms they picked ("exceptional" drought sounds great! )

 

[Michael Snyder]

Oh the drought monitor is a joke... Especially the terms they picked ("exceptional" drought sounds great! )

I'm certainly not an expert in drought conditions, but I'm wondering what makes them unreliable?
I don't have much of an opinion either way, although I do look at the website to check out conditions every couple months or so.

 

[rdale]

The way they determine a drought is suspect. And then after they do it, they hold it a few days before releasing.