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SomeLikeItHot

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Posts posted by SomeLikeItHot

  1. My point was more that GFS isnt "Cannon fodder" or "Dogs biscuits" as its often refered to in here. I agree that the no 1 model in our region over a long period is the ECM but its not by a massive difference and GFS is still in the top 3 and shouldnt be dismissed. Its still better than the JMA / NOGAPS / BOM etc. the 12Z and the 00Z are often the more accurate of the 4 and I personlay dont take much notice of the 06z and 18z.

    Yes I agree. Personally I think the 6z and 18z should be regarded more as ensemble members rather than individual runs.

  2. Can never understand how model performance is subjective and based on opinions ?!? We have verification stats which mathematicaly and scinetificaly proove which are the best models. Over the past few days the top model has switched between UKMO / ECM / GFS so they are all very close. JMA is getting better but very rarely in the top 3.

    We don't mathematically and scientifically prove the best model by looking at what happened in a measure over a few days, but by long term stats, and the ECM consistently has beaten GFS over the years.

    What about the 5 & 6 days stats though, which is probably where there are real and significant divergences at the moment (and have vastly better confidence) here the ECM is better.

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  3. well ukmo are going with there idears so must be taking note of other models large uncertainties though.

    UK Outlook for Tuesday 19 Feb 2013 to Tuesday 5 Mar 2013:

    There are large uncertainties at this forecast range. Conditions will most likely start with temperatures close to or a little below average, with fairly typical winter weather across much of the UK. There are signs that a slightly colder spell may then prevail throughout much of the rest of the period, with more widespread overnight frosts.

    Issued at: 0400 on Mon 4 Feb 2013

    19th of Feb is of course well past the end of the ECM 240 hour run. And yes there is huge uncertainties out past 15days.

    The main differences at this point between GFS and ECM are +120 hours. Relevant part of the UKMO guidance with regard this is

    UK Outlook for Saturday 9 Feb 2013 to Monday 18 Feb 2013:

    Most areas remaining on the cold side this weekend. Some bright spells for many areas, but also some wintry showers in some North Sea coastal areas. Meanwhile parts of western and southwestern UK are likely to be cloudier with some rain, sleet and hill snow, especially later this weekend. Then, next week western parts of the UK are likely to continue to see spells of cloudier weather with rain, hill snow and, perhaps, some snow temporarily to lower levels. Elsewhere conditions will tend to be colder and brighter, though some parts may catch a few wintry showers. Looking ahead to the weekend after next and the start of the following week, conditions most likely to be a little colder than average, with northwestern parts most at risk of unsettled weather.

  4. Meto wont use gefs - they use their own ukmo ens and mogreps. it may well be that these show similar to gefs. judging by the end nov/early dec switch to cold, even though ecm ens showed cold for quite a few days, they were not happy to call cold in their 15 dayer until mogreps agreed

    I'd be surprised if they didn't look at it even if its a secondary consideration, (edit: ah I see Gavins post that seems to be exactly what they do) but my point wasn't about the gefs in particular, but what ensembles are likely to be showing in general with the gefs as an example that I can actually see. - a majority of cold members but a decent minority of mild ones meaning that if you had to nail your opinion to a post as one estimate you say something like likely below average rather than likely wintery and be totally wrong if it turns out to be mild.

  5. With regards to the Meto update for next week if you look at Ensembles then there is something like 5 vs 12 split for mild versus slightly wintery next week with a couple in the middle. Given they give just a single point outlook (ie below average) obviously they are hedging their bets when there is still a range of outcomes. It looks something like 25% chance of mild, 60% cold and 15% of cool. I'd prefer if they came out and said something like those probability estimates but they don't, so you just get wishy washy "cooler than average with mild outbreaks" unless there is a really strong signal.

  6. First post!

    Been reading as a non-member for several years now and what baffles me is how many of the "more experienced" folk are telling us not to look beyond T120 days as things can change and often leave us disappointed yet many of those people contradict themselves by posting charts and predictions based on T168 to T336 models.

    Not sure who said don't look, but surely the point is don't believe everything you see uncritically and exercise some judgement about whether the pattern would have to change much to have a big effect on experienced weather. We've seen models recently do big changes in 72-96hrs, at least in terms to how they effect the UK. But other features like the band of rain and warm air I experienced today/ last night were well flagged a week in advance, even if the exact details wasn't nailed down. If multiple models and multiple runs, ensembles, etc all agree on a feature at 168hrs and its not marginal whether it will effect the UK or not then I think you can be fairly certain something like it will occur at that range. Other times there isn't agreement at that range or its marginal so you pull in your confidence to a shorter time frame.

  7. Back on topic, looking at GFS London ensembles...

    http://www.meteociel...1&ville=Londres

    ...you don't often see that many runs hitting -10C at T850. You could almost call that a cluster, and some of the them stay cold several days. Clearly much potential in the weather from about day 8 onwards.

    Yes the mean is certainly above the majority of members due to a couple of very high near +10 solutions. The mean can be a poor measure if you have a bi-modal distribution. When people are saying there is no cold they are talking about getting the synoptics for prolonged cold not 1-3 days shots of cold interspersed with mild temps which seems to be mostly what is showing. I think some ensembles and the OP got to a blocked synoptic in the end so there is some hope for all.

    Personally I am happy with a bit of cold and maybe a snow shower or two, but then again I lived most of my life in Sydney so I get excited at a light frost. Just so long as we don't get 13 degrees and raining, as I could have done that back home.

  8. But the ensembles are about as much use as the single op run they came from! We've seen that aplenty over the last 3 weeks!

    If we are to see another stratospheric downwell do you really think the ensembles are going to be worth the pixels you see them on?

    P.S if we do see another very cold spell in Feb just remember to salute the people who'll be saying 'told you so' If we don't I'll happily eat my words!

    Quite so. The outcome over the last few weeks is regularly well outside the range of Ensembles once we go into FI. Ensembles are great for range of variation in close but at 240 hours?

    What they can tell you is how sensitive your outcome is to variations in initial conditions, but they will reflect all the other short comings as the Op runs. Eg. if the Op run doesn't accurately take into account some background influence be it SSW or hyperactive butterflies then this also won't be reflected in the ensembles.

  9. It's a very interesting question. In principle, chaos is ever present, and - by definition - it is very difficult to predict. But 'chaos theory' I think is perhaps too loose a term accredited to a phenomenon which - at present - we just don't understand enough about. Indeed, if the weather was truly and absolutely chaotic, ie: that it has no discernible pattern, then it's hard to see how you'd improve a verification score? So, it's chaotic to a degree; the degree being, perhaps, our understanding of the variables at play.

    The ceiling is an interesting idea: is there one? Impossible to tell. Some mathematicians would say that there is, whereas other theoretical physicists would disagree and align themselves more towards a constant intellectual evolution; one which continually raises the ceiling, if you will.

    Some excellent posts there SB. A couple of points, the term "Chaotic" in mathematics has a fairly clear meaning and doesn't mean that there is no discernible pattern, but rather that the dynamical system is highly sensitive to initial conditions - exactly what we see when ensembles diverge rapidly after a few days from the initial conditions.

    As for the question of a ceiling, it seems rather than a ceiling that progress will become asymptotically more difficult as time goes on. There are effectively mathematical limits to how far forward you can meaningfully model non-linear dynamical systems in a truly deterministic sense, but that doesn't mean that we can't obtain useful statistical information beyond this point which is of course entirely the point of the ensembles. I would not be surprised if greater knowledge of various dynamics and linkages results in better statistical forecasts in the med-long term, while not greatly increasing the range of accuracy of deterministic short range forecasts.

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