Merry Christmas! The best numerical weather prediction models in the world have been churning out 5-day forecasts for the past few days that will make someone pull their hair out. The main question is how far east will the major extratropical cyclone or blizzard develop over the Atlantic off of New England. The track details will determine who will get a dusting of snow and who could possibly get 1-2 feet. As the event unfolds, this post will provide additional links.
Current precipitation totals from the NAM 00z model for December 25, 2010 for liquid is well over an inch over most of Southern New England. A 1o to 1 ratio for snow to rain along with blizzard winds will make early week travel as bad as at Heathrow, where snow can be a “very rare and exciting event”.
From meteorologist Ray Hawthorne, fellow FSU grad:
This is one of the most complex forecasts I’ve seen since the infamous, so-called Blizzard of 2000. There appear to be four distinct shortwaves — one along the Texas Gulf coast, another in the Middle/Upper Mississippi Valley, a third in the Middle Missouri Valley, and a fourth in western Ontario province, Canada. The numerical models are having an extremely difficult time handling the interaction of these four waves. Even worse, the model initial conditions earlier today were not very good (see NCEP model diagnostic discussion). Add in the Gulf Stream and what is a gradual breakdown of the high-latitude blocking we’ve seen for several weeks and you’ve got chaos. That said, the trend is clearly westward in the last several NAM and GFS model runs — something that is going to be extraordinarily hard to ignore for much longer. The upcoming two model cycles of the ECMWF will be extremely significant because watches and warnings are going to be needed for many areas in the Mid Atlantic and Northeast fairly quickly. This is the lowest confidence forecast that I can remember seeing in this past decade.
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Joel Shore says:
December 25, 2010 at 6:16 pm
DirkH says:
You say it is a ‘theory’. In that case, it has to be falsifiable. Now, Mr. Petoukhov from the PIK (Institute for climate change impacts; a German institute founded for the cause of AGW) …
(2) This is how science works. Theories do not come in nice little packages…
AGW does not yet qualify as a theory. Not even as a hypothesis. More like a conjecture. The error on measurement of the Earth’s radiative balance is at least three times as big as the claimed signal from co2. Get some useful data and report back.
In the meantime, read this carefully.
http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2009/05/05/have-changes-in-ocean-heat-falsified-the-global-warming-hypothesis-a-guest-weblog-by-william-dipuccio/
Western New Hampshire reporting…looks like our first big snow! Should be great for the skiers.
(from the NWS)
Statement as of 3:40 AM EST on December 26, 2010
… Winter Storm Warning in effect from 6 PM this evening to 5 PM
EST Monday…
The National Weather Service in Gray, ME, has issued a Winter Storm
Warning for snow… which is in effect from 6 PM this evening to 5
PM EST Monday. The Winter Storm Watch is no longer in effect.
* Timing: snow will begin Sunday evening and become heavy at
times Sunday night into Monday morning. Snow will come to an
end Monday afternoon.
* Snow accumulations: total snowfall accumulations of 8 to 12
inches are forecast.
* Winds: northerly winds will strengthen to 15 to 25 mph with
gusts to 35 mph possible… causing blowing and drifting snow.
* Impacts: roads will become snow covered and slippery. Winds will
cause blowing and drifting snow on Monday. Scattered power
outages possible.
Theories can be blown away by little facts. There are always watershed experiments that upset the dominant paradigm. Consider this one:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelson%E2%80%93Morley_experiment
The best experiments are those that rub your nose in it.
There are two big issues with “science” as it is done today.
The first issue is a lack of focus on experiments and real world measurement.
The second issue is a lack of clarity on how to get to answers.
Joel Shore says:
December 25, 2010 at 6:16 pm
To be taken seriously, hypotheses must have a reasonable record of confirmation. Aside from the 19th century hypotheses which explain the behavior of CO2 in the atmosphere, climate science has not offered one reasonably confirmed hypothesis. Climate scientists have a bunch of really interesting hunches. Their hubris and their serious moral error comes in claiming that those hunches are reasonably confirmed hypotheses.
The only thing that permits them to use the word “theory” is that they depend on claims about radiation from the sun and Earth’s radiation into space. But those theories are auxillaries that are entirely independent of climate science. At this time, there is no theory in climate science. That should not be surprising because the science studies the natural history of Earth’s climate. It is not physics. And if you think it is complicated, try telling that to the scientists at CERN.
Jimbo says:
December 25, 2010 at 8:08 am
From the link provided above here is Piers Corbyn:
Piers said (Dec 13th): “The midwest has already had tremendous snow deluges around 10-12 December but ‘You ain’t seen nothing yet’ compared with what is going to hit NE USA including New York State in the period 25-31st December. This is likely to be one of the most significant snowfall/blizzard periods in NE & East USA for decades”.
http://www.weatheraction.com/displayarticle.asp?a=281&c=5
The fact of this successful prediction using theory wholly at variance with mainstream climate science, needs to be disseminated as widely as possible. It is a highly significant science news story.
Ryan, I really appreciate your perspective and insight. I would like to see you, Pier Corbyn and Joe Bastardi in a contest to making long range weather predictions. We could keep score. Maybe Anthony would like to jump in too!
Found this on Drudge.com –
BundleUp
The New York Times writer explains why all this freezing weather is Global Warming At Work……….
Ryan Maue
You called it right. The storm is hitting now with all forms of travel delayed. Sunday Night Football is postponed until Tuesday night. It’s the first time since 1932 that the NFL decided to call a game off on the same day of the game.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40812024/ns/local_news-rochester_ny/40811115
The storm being called a millibar bomb.
phlogiston says:
So, I have a super-secret theory that uses the solar magnetic field and the location of the moon to determine which sports teams will win various national tournaments like the SuperBowl and the World Series. If I make many such predictions for teams around the world and occasionally some of them turn out to be correct, is that also “a highly significant science news story” or would you instead demand some real evidence that my predictions are statistically much better than chance…i.e., would you demand to look at all of my predictions and see how they all turned out?
DirkH says:
You say it is a ‘theory’. In that case, it has to be falsifiable. Now, Mr. Petoukhov from the PIK (Institute for climate change impacts; a German institute founded for the cause of AGW) has ‘proven’ (by running a computer program) that AGW makes cold winters in Europe thrice as likely as in the non-AGW case.
Dirk are you aware that thePotsdam institute was created as a sister sit to the university of East Anglia. Also this paper was completed last year but left on the shelf for a better winter.
FWIW, here north of Concord NH, I had 5.2″ of surprisingly dense snow by 0700, less than expected, but I think there was a substantial lull overnight. Two more inches since then.
Reports from coastal Mass include flooding in Scituate, which used to be common, but much less frequent in the last 15 years or so.
There’s 5 feet of water in one road, two houses are on fire and may jump to three more.
My air pressure may have bottomed out around 982 mb, Nantucket, close to the center of the low got down to 963 mb.
Andy says:
And, since you have stated this as a fact, I assume you have real evidence to support this. (Hint: The fact that the paper took a while to get published does not alone provide any such evidence that it was delayed for such a reason.)