What do you all think of these "recurring cycle" theories with weather?

[J Gontesky]

A Kansas City area broadcast met (Gary Lezak) often touts his own weather cycling theory and states that the weather pattern sets up in the fall and cycles over and over again through the winter and spring and is very predictable.

He states it this way:

The Lezak's Recurring Cycle (or LRC) is a theory developed by Gary Lezak. Gary noticed back in the 1980s that storm systems seemed to have similar characteristics unique to that year. Quite simply a storm in February looked very similar to one that had occured earlier in that season, say in December. As the years went by Gary started paying closer attention to the weather patterns and he came up with the LRC.

The LRC (Lezak's Recurring Cycle)​

• A unique weather pattern sets up every autumn between October 1st and November 10th
• "Long term" longwave troughs and ridges become established over the northern hemishpere
• The pattern cycles and repeats over and over again until it slowly weakens and falls apart during the mid summer months

A lot of research is currently being done in an attempt to prove the theory, but in the very least in the goal of showing that the LRC exists. As you read through the other sections on this website try to pick up on some of our ideas.

I do not believe there are any academic papers or research that has been completed on his angle, but from watching him on air, he is clearly very passionate about it.

Last year he said the weather cycled every 46 days or so...

He writes about it frequently on his station's blog:
http://community.nbcactionnews.com/blogs/weatherblog/default.aspx

And now apparently has his own "company" related to his theory (from which the above snippet is copied) :
http://www.lrcweather.com

So what say you, StormTrack? I'm curious to hear the take of some more degreed mets on the topic.

 

[rdale]

His forecasts have verified about as well as the Farmers Almanac when we looked at it on another forum...

 

[Joey Ketcham]

Doug Heady, a local Chief Met here, worked with Lezak and also uses the same theory.

http://www.koamtv.com/Global/category.asp?C=117031&nav=menu657_4_8

 

[rdale]

It would be neat if it did work, but every time he's proposed it to degreed mets, it gets beaten apart by verification issues (if it rains when the forecast said it would snow, it's a hit, if it snows a little when the forecast said it would snow a lot, it's a hit -- that sort of stuff.)

 

[J Gontesky]

Doug Heady, a local Chief Met here, worked with Lezak and also uses the same theory.

http://www.koamtv.com/Global/category.asp?C=117031&nav=menu657_4_8

What do you think of his forecasts as they relate to his theory?

Any more/less validity than traditional approaches?

 

[MatthewCarman]

This reminds me of someone who had a theory that all of our weather was affected by the moon and the stars if I remember correctly. He said our astronomy had a huge play in our weather. (Sorry for going off topic)

I still think weather is not predictable enough for us to say it will do this or that in so many days etc so for me the reuccuring cycle theory is not very accurate but it can give us an idea of what could happen for a time period.

 

[Joey Ketcham]

What do you think of his forecasts as they relate to his theory?

Any more/less validity than traditional approaches?

I haven't really paid attention to be honest, I've heard it has been pretty accurate but I really don't watch much local news.

 

[Jeff Duda]

I would think evaluating upper air analysis maps like those on the RAP site over a long period of time would help validate that claim. I believe there is some truth to it, but the theory, as I understand it, is more qualitative rather than quantitative.

 

[rdale]

...and it's one thing to look at upper air patterns... It's another to correlate them to surface.

 

[Jeff Passner]

Some of these theories have been around forever. Lezak's work does show a little promise and I've talked to him about it. It's a matter of how you look at the atmosphere. He knows how I feel about it --- I think the atmosphere, being a fluid, is subject to more random, unpredictable forces which can't possibly follow steady patterns. On the other hand, perhaps there is some truth to his idea --- the gradients are established by mid-October based on temperatures of the oceans and land; thus, the fluid follows a pattern based on these well-established temperature gradients at the surface and aloft. As this gradient weakens in the late Spring, the pattern falls apart.

What bothers me about Lezak's theory is that he has not proposed any scientific reasoning in why this would happen, patterns recycle.. Is there any Q-G theory that can explain this on the larger-scale and how does this interact on the mesoscale. Additionally, Lezak has studied the US only. Does this theory hold in Russia? Does it work in the Southern Hemisphere? A 46-day pattern is wonderful but he must get more detailed on why and how it happens. Again, I have told him this and he respects what I have said... The problem is: finding time and making the effort to study this in a more scientific way. The land-sea interactions may make this theory complete junk in Brazil or Africa. It would be amazing if he could verify what he claims... However, his verification "box" only covers about 10 percent of the "fluid" that makes up the whole atmophere.

 

[Adam Penney]

Well last night on his 10 p.m. news cast, Gary Lezak issued his yearly "winter forecast". He issues this based on his cylce theory called the "LRC" or "Lezak-Recurring-Cycle". Last year he predicted KMCI would receive 19 inches of snow, and it ended up with 22. So he has been fairly accurate.

He also just recently developed a website to increase public knowledge of this cycle theory. If anyone is interested in checking it out, here is the link to his blog...

http://www.lrcweather.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=24&Itemid=29

 

[rdale]

He said it would receive less than normal snow, it received more than normal snow - and that's successful? His forecast would have been better had he gone with climo, so I'm not sure I understand the conclusion.

 

[Jeff House]

The LRC is a reasonably good tool for the broad pattern and shifts from month to month. When I say reasonable, I mean that it adds value over climo. The LRC is not meant to replace short-term forecasting. It never attempts to predict day to day weather months out. It is only a tool to perhaps catch something before the dynamic models because the forecaster knows the cycle. I am bullish the LRC.

 

[Sean McMullen]

To say that there is a 46 day cycle without a published scientific paper to back it up is a pretty bold claim. It's well documented that the amount of Rosby waves decreases in the winter and the temperature gradient increases. Also due to the north-south orientation of the Rockies, which is a feature that is really unique only to the U.S. and Peru, low pressure centers naturally occur in the same general areas due to the effect of vorticity traveling over mountainous regions and the average amplitude of longwave troughs giving us the Colorado Low and Alberta Clippers. Even though Colorado lows can form up and down the Rockies and can appear to be somewhat random, their formation is actually pretty predictable. If you were to look at a climatology of cyclogenesis over the plains during winter you would see they form over pretty much the same areas. Because of this I could see why there would seem to be some sort of cycle, and who knows maybe there is one, but until there is some very credible research done and published, I can only chalk these weather patterns up to the seasons and the unique geography of the U.S. which is responsible as well for the amount of severe storms and tornadoes we receive.