Sunday, September 02, 2007
Unfiltered Weather Geek Delivers Television Forecast
Fantastic Holiday Weather Continues
Andrew Freedman @ 2:00 AM
I get the most enjoyment from television weather forecasters who enthusiastically "geek out" on their audience. This may be because I enjoy knowing that there are other people out there like myself who get jazzed about the atmosphere. Or it could be because excitement naturally draws viewers to the screen, at least more so than the cookie cutter drab weather presentation popular on many stations these days.Dan Stillman's Forecast
Today: Sunny. Low humidity. Highs in the low 80s.Tonight: Clear. Lows near 65 in town, upper 50s in the burbs.
Labor Day: Mostly sunny. Low humidity. Highs in the upper 80s.
Interestingly though, watching the most dynamic TV weathercasters, such as The Weather Channel's Jim Cantore, it seems as if they are actually restraining themselves much of the time they are on the air lest they become incomprehensibly jargon-filled.
But what if they didn't hold back? What if they were permitted to geek out to the best of their ability, since Hollywood has proclaimed that this is, after all, the era when the geek is cool?
Then weather forecasts might go like this, which I derived from the baseline of an NWS technical discussion during a winter storm event (this in no way reflects the current weather situation in Washington, D.C.):
"Good evening everybody. All eyes are on the skies the next few days as a shortwave trough goes negative tilt on us, cranking the S plus machine into high gear in a late season blitz, particularly in the northern part of the CWA.
Let's get right to it. As you can see, right now we have 850mb temps running about -5 to -8 across the region, definitely cold enough to support one precip type throughout the column, except perhaps right along the shore and to the south, where enough low level WAA may get involved as the low bombs out near the benchmark.
However, I think the enormous VVs involved in this system will overcome any WAA and keep things all S in the entire CWA. Game on!
Taking a look around the region at the satellite imagery... God I love it when I see that blossoming comma head over a baroclinic zone like this! It's the atmosphere's way of saying, welcome to my party, let's dance!
At the upper levels, we have a 150 knot jet streak coming down the base of this sucker, which is gonna kick the vertical motion into high gear at the Left Exit Region starting at around 18Z.
In storms like this you often here me talk about conflicting computer models. First we have the GFS, which shows the low bombing out by 22Z right near the benchmark, and stalling for 12 hours, pumping out almost two inches of qpf in a bulls eye along the I 95 corridor and just to the west. You can clearly see the deformation zone and csi banding possibilities on this next map.
Next up is the ETA, which shows a similar scenario, but puts the low a bit farther north and west and shifts the axis of S+ way north almost into Canada. I'm discounting this one because it doesn't seem to have initialized well. As my old college professor used to say, "Garbage in, Garbage out," and I'm waiting to see what the next run shows before I adjust my totals.
The NGM, by the by, is on board with a similar scenario only it suggests more of a change to zp over the southeast corner of the CWA.
Ok, now for the Canadian and UKMET. The interesting things about these runs is that they really capture the evolution of the system that we've seen to date, particularly the pressure fall/rise couplet around ORF. So these are in agreement with the GFS, and agreement is what this guy likes in his computer models.
That, and nice eyes.
Oh! A computer model joke!
On the water vapor imagery you can clearly see the vort max turnin' and burnin' its way out of Canada, adding the necessary fuel to the fire here.
Bottom line folks, if you're planning on doing any travel tomorrow or the next day, forget about it. Not gonna happen. Might as well let grandma die from a lack of insulin.
This thing is going to be a 48-hour bender as it gets captured by the upper air flow.
Live WSR 88D shows the first bands creeping into the metro area as virga. This will all fill in as time goes by.
I'm out of time, but I'll be here throughout the weekend to give you frequent updates. Check back tomorrow morning for the next computer model run, including where that deformation axis and best frontogenic forcing is going to be.
Weatherman... out! Back to you at at the anchor desk."
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