This Week's Storms - FORECAST, MODEL DISCUSSION ONLY

maw368

Does anyone agree with the last video from Mark Vogan (above) and if so would it deliver a hit to Wales? as Wales seems to be in an area of relatively compact isobars?

Su Campu

Comparing the NAE to the Hirlam for 18Z Thursday, the Hirlam has a floppy 1000 hPa nothing to the south, no doubt due to the 12Z ECM's total denial of all knowledge of any storm for then.

maquiladora

Weathercheck wrote: »

Storm coming in the range of meso NAE runs (UKM meso)

And shows the potential for this storm to be more intense as it approaches us.

Although not a danger to Ireland on these charts, alot further north and intense than any other model i have seen tonight.

Well thats interesting. Higher res model picking up on some detail getting missed by the global models maybe?

Su Campu

18Z GFS has tomorrow's small low further north, centred through the midlands by 18Z, which would bring those strong winds onto south coast.

gbee

maw368 wrote: »

Seanknowsall issue .

No, and I wouldn't. Weather is unpredictable, sure, but weather is inevitable too. And if just ONE condition is missing it is inevitable that certain things follow and this may go against the models and established practice.

Deep Easterly

The UKMO - ECMWF stand off continues via their hi-res childer.



C'mon UKMO!

maquiladora

mike65 wrote: »

Did anyone watch the met error and UK Met Office forecasts on RTE and BBC? I just did back to back, on RTE Friday wasn't even mentioned, the Beeb were paying notable attention to the potential for a damaging storm track.

UKMO are more wary because if it does ramp up, then the track is far more likely to affect southern UK than Ireland, at least thats the way things look now.

maquiladora

Deep Easterly wrote: »

The UKMO - ECMWF stand off continues via their hi-res childer.



C'mon UKMO!

I dunno about you but I'm thinking coffee and 0Z NAE now. :P

ninebeanrows

maquiladora wrote: »

UKMO are more wary because if it does ramp up, then the track is far more likely to affect southern UK than Ireland, at least thats the way things look now.

Exactly, the 18z NAE would probably lead to severe winds for London and highly populated areas of southern England.

0z NAE the next interest!

Su Campu

Following on from what I was saying about the large waves off Donegal being generated by hurricane force winds, the US Fax analysis for 12Z today does have a big fat HURCN FORCE sign right bang in the area. They do tend to bandy this about a lot in their charts, but in this case I think it's warranted.

mike65

maquiladora wrote: »

UKMO are more wary because if it does ramp up, then the track is far more likely to affect southern UK than Ireland, at least thats the way things look now.

That's fair enough but I'd have thought it worth noting if only for interest. Very parochial I thought.

maw368

gbee wrote: »

No, and I wouldn't. Weather is unpredictable, sure, but weather is inevitable too. And if just ONE condition is missing it is inevitable that certain things follow and this may go against the models and established practice.

You'll have to excuse me, I'm not long home from work and I feel a little frazzled. I don't wish to sound stupid but heck, I feel like I'm missing your point still. You think something is going to happen that contradicts the models? and established practices. If so then what is it you think is going to be the outcome. I honestly have no idea what to expect, but I don't think the models have it pegged and I HOPE that we're still on for some exciting weather.

maw368

http://wow.metoffice.gov.uk/

If you check the observation that is sticking out among the rest for its colour indicator. Its showing the temperature on the boarder of Dartmoor National Park as -14 degrees. I'm assuming this is a naff observation right?

Redsunset

Latest from NOAA puts tomorrows low centre in agreement with NAE i think and developing storm for our interested end of week.



Then rapid intensification to our south

Deep Easterly

DMI 18z run hasn't updated yet; tends to pick up on any potential changes quicker than the EMHI model but the AEMET output at least in agreement with it.

AEMET HIRLAM Thursday! 1900hrs forecast:


NAE/UKMO on its own.

maquiladora

redsunset wrote: »

Latest from NOAA puts tomorrows low centre in agreement with NAE i think and developing storm for our interested end of week.

Looks a little bit further south than the NAE.

I wonder is there anything that could trigger that RI starting a bit earlier? Might shift it left more.

gbee

maw368 wrote: »

You think something is going to happen that contradicts the models?

Me, personally, no. I went storm chasing today. No result. The point is that 'someone' could see something, that has not been picked up by the models ~ but now, it's more or less post mortem time now. [where did we go wrong time].

maquiladora

Ian Fergusson on twitter saying that the UKMO ensembles support southerly track, but then later he adds "we can't be sure possibly until close to the Thurs-Fri night period. Honestly."

Su Campu

I'm beginning to think that tomorrow's system coming down from the northwest will be some sort of polar low for at least part of the day. It looks slightly like one already on satellite imagery, with the inward cloud spirals, and the NAE, GFS and Hirlam all show it developing a warm core as it moves southeastwards later tonight and during early tomorrow. There will be no snow for Ireland associated with it, but it is one to keep an eye on.

M.T. Cranium

To put things in some perspective, the situation on the models around last Friday with a consensus at 144h for a historic damaging storm was quite unusual if not unique. I think if you read more carefully the comments of the alleged guilty parties there were signs of doubt in the outcome being that intense, but at the same time, if there is fault or blame to be handed out, I would suggest that fault-finders make personal visits to the places where these global models are churned out and complain there (I would join you), since in this area of interest (I was going to say line of work but most here are working for free) we are pretty much captive to these models.

I can recall a time 30-40 years ago when the models were only reliable to about 36-48h and the sort of guidance we had available past 3 days was often outperformed by personal subjective map-drawing type forecasts. In fact it used to be the practice in weather offices to draw up your own forecast maps :eek: and use them for the 3-5 day outlooks. This was not quite as horrible an outcome as people might suppose, but it tends to be an art form that has largely gone down the memory hole.

Of course there's a certain amount of second-guessing of model output going on with experienced weather watchers all the time, once you gain that experience it tends to reinforce certain perspectives about which kinds of patterns are more reliable and which are less reliable. And this is a game anyone can play, which is why weather forums are so popular. There is no other branch of science where it is so easy for any interested person to get themselves up to a general level of competence and then (if they don't feel shy) go head to head with anyone and everyone present, regardless of reputation or anything else. And while the more senior "real" forecasters stay out of these things, believe me, they are not privy to some "big secrets that none of us can know" but rather, they are paid to be very cautious about any guidance past four days. That's really the only difference, it's not like they are seeing secret weather models that aren't published on the internet.

And actually if we all switched roles the results would be exactly the same. I think the boards forecast and IWO experiments proved that point to any fair-minded person. I get personal messages almost every day saying actually the opposite is true. I figure those are partly a function of people being nice to somebody who is providing a free service, so I factor that in and take it as an assessment that the services are roughly equal. Things like the model meltdown are disappointing to me, because it places anyone forecasting in a bad situation, you're damned if you do and damned if you don't. Now I didn't start this thread or this argument, but probably would have urged somebody to start the thread a short time later, when the models started to show the two storms (the first one, they nailed, I would say). So as I say, what would be the situation today if the models had nailed storm 2 and I had said in the boards forecast, well based on my 687 years of model watching, this is obviously crap, don't worry about it. That would have been far worse, and then factor in, even at this late stage, there are still hints that an eventual outcome of some severity could develop.

A bit of a ramble there, but I hope everyone understands, in this weather game we are all hostage to these models mainly because they are so good, you would realize that if you had done weather forecasting a long time ago more or less flying blind but also with your own intuition "switched on" as the main driver of the longer range portion of forecasts. The growing ability of these models in the range of 2-6 days is obvious to long-time observers and has resulted in that ability being downgraded if not completely extinguished.

Ironically, in the research model I am developing, there was a strong event indicated for the 12th near the timing lines, but nothing too spectacular on the 16th. So that's frustrating to me, had I been locked in a room with no data and asked to speculate on the weather in Ireland, I would have said storm Monday-Tuesday, not a storm Thursday-Friday. The next big energy peak in my research model occurs on 24 December. We'll see what "mother nature" makes of that one (and the models). Anyway, models, you can come down for dessert now. (oh, behave):)

Su Campu

Well said MT!

maquiladora

Very well said MT.

John mac

well put MT..

Now can we have the original thread title back :D
(must get the record for most title edits.)

Ahorseofaman

All your work is much appreciated

The Westerner

Su Campu wrote: »

I'm beginning to think that tomorrow's system coming down from the northwest will be some sort of polar low for at least part of the day. It looks slightly like one already on satellite imagery, with the inward cloud spirals, and the NAE, GFS and Hirlam all show it developing a warm core as it moves southeastwards later tonight and during early tomorrow. There will be no snow for Ireland associated with it, but it is one to keep an eye on.

Image at 2348GMT.

tomcosgrave

I don't comment much but I read avidly. MT, you are a class act and a brilliant meteorologist.

sdanseo

tomcosgrave wrote: »

I don't comment much but I read avidly. MT, you are a class act and a brilliant meteorologist.

Absolutely.

Most of what I know about weather charts come from lurking on this forum and I can now browse weather sites and charts and be able to figure out pretty much what they are telling me.

Only reason I don't post so much as I do in other forums here on boards (although I'm chatty enough in general discussion about the weather) is that there's generally very little a novice can contribute - I'm beginning to think I'm not quite so clueless as I think and may post a bit more going forward - but it must be said there are a number of people here who provide a huge amount of knowledge to a huge number of people - as proven by the number of people who take extra interest during periods of snow, storm or flood.

Keep it up, and thanks for all your contributions. Not least MTC for the clockwork forecasts!

Sponge Bob

Met Éireann!

No mention of the Weds 'low' trundling through Kerry...roughly Loop to Mizen to Carnsore.

Weather Warning

Issued at 14 December 2011 - 00:18
Severe Weather Alert
Stormy conditions continuing to abate.

Gale Warning

Gale force southwest to west winds overnight and on Wednesday morning on coasts from Slyne Head to Malin Head to Fair Head and on the Irish Sea north of Anglesey.
Issued at 00:00 on 14-Dec-2011

M.T. Cranium

Thanking people for comments on the thread and in private messages received. Must confess, however, not a meteorologist. Have some work experience in actual forecast office settings but have spent 32 years as a maverick climate scientist and my academic training is basically that of the dreaded "climate scientist" ... this is not a new revelation here by the way, I am pretty sure it has been known among the cognoscenti that I am not a meteorologist. I was once called a planetologist but I imagine that was just an insult going over my head.

Anyway, now the meteorologists of the realm can sleep soundly knowing that their honour has not been reduced by having MTC among their number.

That problem was solved over this way around, oh, 1980 or so.

mickger844posts

GFS 0Z has that interesting low pressure for Wednesday but nothing special there. Thursday into Friday France and the Benelux countries seeing most of the action.