Modelology

My thing is modeling. How do you get forecasters to use more of the tools? And will these tools actually help them? Cause they have to learn the models to use them, and use them often to learn them. Then we get to figure out if any of that was worth it.

Notes from AMS 2017 Annual meeting

AMS annual meeting notes and pseudo report:

Reflection on 26 April 2016

Some reflections on "busted" forecasts and some quotes from the Bosart Symposium.

Sensitivity and the poor forecasts that follow

I want to ask a different question. Why are we having these struggles in forecasting? Why are these models so sensitive as to make poor forecasts?

Hurricane Matthew

Been testing out some concepts on hurricane Matthew over the last few weeks.

Value of certainty

So you like to look at 120h deterministic forecasts from your favorite model. GOOD FOR YOU!
My favorites dont go out that far. But when MPAS went out to Day 5 they were fun to look at it. Not just for the immediate future forecast but for the future of forecasting.

Work in progress

Who is responsible? {spoiler alert: We all are.}

Is that really THE question?

HWT EFP 2015 & recent past

The 2015 HWT Experimental Forecast Program just ended. We didnt have much opportunity to wander the country like we did in the quiet year of 2014, but it looked amazingly like 2013. Here is a brief comparison:

Tornado Summit 2015

Today at the Tornado Summit I listened to a number of good talks. The Emergency Management community was well represented by the National Guard, the Healthcare industry, among many others.

Simulated Lake Effect Nov 18

Below is an animated gif of the NSSL-WRF forecast from Nov 18, 2014 at 0000 UTC of the 0-3km Updraft helicity (hourly max) during the Lake effect snow event. 

What is a test bed?

The formal definition from wikipedia: "A platform for experimentation of large development projects."

Oct 13 Verification

Here is the promised update to my experimental graphics, though reports are still trickling in as surveys are completed. When I ran my code last Tuesday not all of these reports were accounted for. Remember that I have a modeling slant to present. Below are two versions of verification (all reports including damage, and one where we stick to reports that meet formal severe criteria).

October 13th Severe Event

As of 915pm, storm reports pretty much show a hole in the MDT issued at 06Z which was focused on wind and sig wind. A comparison of the categorical outlook and the SSEO forecast I generate using UH tracks, showed a few interesting things:

#AMS2014

I havent been a big fan of the annual meeting. It is simply too big. This is partly my fault, because my interests are varied. I like to get around and see many different types of talks. You just never know when inspiration might strike or when you might learn a new technique, a new way of thinking about a problem by getting out of your comfort zone.

This time after realizing that almost every session I wanted to sit in on had competing sessions I was interested in, I folded. I became a speaker and networker rather than a viewer. Though I did my fair share of live tweeting when I was a viewer. So go ahead and check the tweets if you missed it.

How soon is too soon?

One of the issues that has come up more and more recently is: "You cant forecast that 10 days out!"

So when can you forecast what, and when should you do it? After all, the atmosphere is not perfectly predictable, there is uncertainty in knowing the current state of the atmosphere and uncertainty contained within the equations and parameterizations that we use to approximate the behavior of the atmosphere.

Space vision

Some cool voyages to space occurred in the last week or so. The Cygnus spacecraft launched and after a bit of trouble docked with the ISS. A major milestone on the second flight for this company. SpaceX launched a new and improved Falcon9. They redesigned the engine structure on the 1st stage, built the second stage to refire to put satellites into higher orbits, modified the first stage to refire to control re-entry, and to fire again to slow the vehicle down for splashdown - what will eventually become a soft landing on launchpad!  The Russian proton rocket came roaring back to life after a failed flight previously.

Get in, Get Down, Cover Up!

Summary - Remember to shelter in place. Put as many walls between you and the tornado as possible. Get in, Get Down, Cover Up!

Verification continued

Yesterday I showed the full period (roughly a day 1 convective outlook) of the SSEO. Since we will test the ensemble at finer time scales, down to 3 hour periods, here are the three 3hr periods under consideration.
18-21 UTC

The figures presented here should be used with caution. The models do not always produce reliable or skillful forecasts of the initiation or evolution of convection or convective mode. Thus using them as I did before depends crucially on being good enough in the time period under consideration to provide useful but not specific guidance.

This first thing you may notice is how circular all the probabilities look due to the use of a gaussian smoother. Thus there are both very few reports and model simulated reports in these areas. There is very little overlap between reports and model reports.
21-00 UTC

In this second period, model reports increase dramatically for some members. The amount of overlap increases for NSSL-WRF, NMMB, and 3/4 of the HRW members. Not bad. I would hope that the members can capture some of the severe weather scenario that played out, including getting close to the proper location. NSSL-WRF does well in this period in SW OK as do the HRW-NMMs. If you look to NE MO then those members plus an HRW-ARW member cover that maximum pretty closely.
00-03 UTC

In the 3rd period, the ARW's, NSSL-WRF, and NMMB and HRW-NMM all contribute (glancing blow for some of them) in some way to the maxima in SW OK. The same holds for MO.

For this case at least, the models appear to be able to simulate at least 3 hour probabilities of total severe weather. As I have indicated elsewhere, the use of UH to match against all severe reports appears, again for this case, justified. Such will be one of my foci for the upcoming Hazardous Weather Testbed Spring Forecasting Experiment as part of the Experimental Forecast Program. Testing this out for a bunch of cases this year, and extending it back in time will be a goal of mine moving forward.

Verification issues: severe wx and fronts

I have been computing total severe probabilities from the SSEO and the event on the 17th offered a nice opportunity to do "verification". The idea is to use object based Hourly Maximum Updraft Helicity and treat local maxima as storm reports. This method allows us to extract information from the 4km pseudo convection allowing ensemble in a way that is comparable to storm reports (at least at the level of the grid used for verification, wind reports are scrutinized for speed).

Here is the verification, and of course this is all experimental:

Getting attention

What seems to garner attention these days? It certainly isnt success. More often than not it is failure. Failure it seems, is quite the motivating force. Politicians use the perception of failure in concise talking points. Sometimes they use absolute failure but more often than not they never let the truth get in the way of a good story. This attracts both kinds of attention: The people that agree with you love your refreshing honesty and the people that disagree with repeat your talking point and explain why it is wrong in some nuanced fashion. Double the message at half the price!

Even in social media on a personal level. Speaking about something calmly and rationally gets some attention. But making a scene, getting "facts" "wrong", well that is an entirely engaging flame war for the masses. Everyone wants to take their turn at the pinata that you just happened to leave near a giant baseball bat.

The other ways of getting attention usually involve solid communication skillz. Relating on a personal level, unleashing some passion, being vulnerable, expressing yourself on a deep emotional level. These garner a different kind of attention, perhaps. They seem to be places that resonate from within, in a way that is just as expressive but can also be deeply constructive. The "I have been there" attitude, "I know what that is like".  You know these conversations. they occur on topics outside of controversy, or perhaps we practice them outside of controversy and dont bring them to the flame war party.

We have to choose to behave like this. To attract attention to those things we care about on a personal level, to treat other people as if we share a perspective and thus can relate. To become "friends" before we hammer out our discourse. After all it isnt the perspective that blocks us from acheiving this, its the pollution from "I am right and you are wrong" attitude. A contamination of the communication environment. Its hard to make any point when you have to absorb all the nastiness in your first breathe before you get your words out.

So ask yourself: Are you contributing to the pollution? Are you selling your point of view or are you collecting information to update your perspective or perception?

We cant be perfect in every conversation. So dont expect other people to be. But at least give a listen and try to understand. Make them identify their assumptions and you should identify yours. After all the point isnt to get attention in the first place. Its to communicate.