SATSIGS

[Stratos Ferric]

If you take winter very seriously, and if your very existence hangs by an icicle attached however tenuously to prospects for snow - you know who you are - then I suggest you desist from reading this thread NOW. You have been warned.

As a light hearted nod in the direction of winter / wanter / wonter, I thought I might venture to bring the SATSIGs team back out of summer hibernation. I can't remember who we had last year, though I'm fairly sure WIB was our W London agent, Enforcer was there simply because it never snows in Abingdon, and I recall that OON and John lived at opposite ends of the "mysterious zone of sound northern thinking" which, equally mysteriously, wended it's way through, erm, Steeton - I'm sitting back pulling a surprised / shocked face as I type; you'll just have to imagine it as smiley-world.com hasn't reached that level of sophistication yet it seems. TM was in this zone as well, but for reasons not related to the PIT it by-passed Sheffield. TWS even moved so that he could LIVE in the zone.m Others may wish to follow suit.

SATSIGs' mission is to try to moderate, reasonably, AND LIGHT-HEARTEDLY, the wanter forcasts / hopecasts. Just to help the naive reader judge

Anyway, assuming there aren't too many yelps of protest from, say, the south coast, resulting in this thread being locked, and always accepting the constraints of time which now that I no longer have a public sector client are far more severe, this thread may periodically lurch back up the charts - usually, I find, when there's blue on GFS encroaching from points between 10:30 and 04:00.

I didn't keep the Sod All The Science It's Gonna snow scale last year, but here it is.

There are various types of ramp, and the SATSIGs scale is used to issue a RAMP ALERT when ramping is ongoing. Occasionally predictions for potential ramping might be made. Periodically we issue maps to show the overall state of ramping, and, if time permits (it won't) maps showing ramp forecasts.

There are three basic types of ramp. Wildly speculative far away ramps which wouldn't appear on the map of the possible even if the same stretched right to the boundary of Possibleshire, which is a very very long way away, trust me - e.g. "we're in for a right old fashioned dumping in 23 days' time". Er, right... Bounds of plausibility ramps; when the models are showing potential but it's still just over the rainbow: these tend to be characterised by arguments that start of sane before the writer starts to surf their own self-generated wave of froth. E.g. "GFS has been showing this for seven days now, and although it's coming and going it's a definite feature and it's starting to look as if, so long as HP builds here, ice grows up there, Mercury goes retrograde and Rotherham beat Bradford, we might get the mother and father of all old-fashioned dumpings and I'm going to be shovelling my way out of thehouse and calling in air-sea rescue to drop supplies". Then there's the near time stuff; the characteristics here vary - the basic thing here is that cold weather is now looking very likely, and the ramp is not so much 'if' as 'what'. Typical examples from last year were a post suggesting that what was a wedy tendril of NW'ly flow would produce "at least a foot tonight". There is a variant of the ramp thatapplies to measured depth of snow as well, but snowflation is the stuff of another thread, unless we're bored / irritated.

Anyway, a rough guide toi ramp dimensions:

1 - SLIGHT RAMP: Early calls for potential cold weather based on highly speculative and usually distant charts. E.g. "looks like we might get some frost later this week". Very weak ramps are usually caveated, and not snowflationary, though they are making slightly desperate grasps - not unusual during long spells of Atlantic dross. ALso applies to slightly inflated extraplation of enuine prospects for snow. E.g. "looks like we might get a covering in London if we're lucky", when clearly the type of luck required would be that of the back-to-back lottery winner, or the person finding themselves waking up alongside Brad / Angelina (or both) in an accidental no clothes type situation. I know it's the stuff of the "National Enquirer" but so is some of the ramping we occasionally get.

2 - MODERATE RAMP: Early calls for moderate extremes of weather, and near-event inflation of prospects. "Could be a big day for you next Wednesday, Dave" or "Looks like I'll be working from home the day after tomorrow" - the latter when all that's shown is a cool HP right over the UK.

3 - HEAVY RAMP: Usually follows a chart that has caused moderate ramping, and can simply be a group effect. Characterised by "my snowdrift is going tobe bigger than your snowdrift" type discussions. Also representtive of the behaviour when distant cold on GFS persists for several runs, and builds. We saw this to great effect several times over the past two years when GFS built things up, and we even had an instance a couple of weeks or so back.

4 - SEVERE RAMP: Either - a plainly daft call for severe weather based on GFS runs that are literally projected in a timescale in which you couldn't even reach Venus (it requires BOTH conditions - i.e. long way out and simply silly scale of assessment of impact) OR a gross exageration of impact of a near-time event. E.g. "I'm expecting to see Polar bears on my lawn next week".

5 - RAMPEDE: Rampedes are dangerous, and even WIB in SATSIG 11 (it's very big) with the anti-rampede ray gun pod will struggle to contai this one. Characterised by lots of inter ramper chatter leading to an inflationary spiral towards, what the uninitiated reader might assume to be, Armageddon. Think four horsemen of the Apocalypse meets Revelations,. It's the cold weather equivalent of the South Sea Bubble and the 1992 run on the pound. Belt up and have fun.

Ramps away...let the ramping begin...

[Dawlish]

Now I understand! I'm still giggling too!

I'll keep a wary eye out from the, what were we called? Ah yes, the South West Oscillation. I like that phrase. It implies we look at both warm and cold! Sod All The Science It's Gonna Snow. Priceless!

Paul

[Snowly does it]

lol.

For anyone sincerely interested, I am working on a covert anti-SATSIG system much like a cellphone blocker which will allow copious amounts of ramping to go largely undetected by the ministry of right-thinking.

Cromwell never killed Christmas, and 1984 came and went. Ramping will rule undeterred.

BTW, watch out for December 20th.... SATSIG montors might well go out in the big freeze.

[Stratos Ferric]

lol.

For anyone sincerely interested, I am working on a covert anti-SATSIG system much like a cellphone blocker which will allow copious amounts of ramping to go largely undetected by the ministry of right-thinking.

Cromwell never killed Christmas, and 1984 came and went. Ramping will rule undeterred.

BTW, watch out for December 20th.... SATSIG montors might well go out in the big freeze.

Norfolk is known as a hot-bed of left wing liberal thinking, that's why it's so hard to get to! First in line for the Beast from the East though.

[Snowly does it]

Norfolk is known as a hot-bed of left wing liberal thinking, that's why it's so hard to get to! First in line for the Beast from the East though.

It's hard to get to because we don't want anyone here, we are very insular folk

Yes first in line for the beasterly and Eye's wash streamer has nothing on the morainic ridge dump, its almost avalanche season on the downslopes into the Glaven Valley most times there is a slight height rise over northern Scandi.

Still, good luck to the round-spectacled beaurocrats from the ministry, may you catch many Midlanders grasping for snow from all directions when we all know its only clever places which stick out into the North Sea which catch the snow.

Do you issue uniforms? I am thinking boy scouts with briefcases.

[shuggee]

I call for a return of the map.

[russh]

Ramps away...let the ramping begin...

Thank sf

i asked a few weeks ago if this could be revived for the sacra thread i think its brilliant and looking forward to the various ramping states

[Stratos Ferric]

I call for a return of the map.

So do I. I did want to produce a summary of winter, but with the change of laptop, then change of employer, I have carelessly lost the archive. I could make one up - though that last statement implies a degree of rigour in the actual maps which might overstate ever so slightly the reality. Anyway, be assured, that on some lonely evening in a far away hotel room, if we ever get anything to ramp about, a map or two will be produced.

[nick sussex]

Very funny post SF, but I think even your best efforts at avoiding ramping are likely to fail. The reason being that in the UK even unrealistic snow hoping is better than none at all and is what keeps this forum busy during the winter.

So I've decided that SATSIGS is bad for netweather in terms of hits on the site and so have banned your organisation

I'm sure Paul would back me here!

[Osbourne One-Nil]

I'm sure Paul would back me here!

Depends which Paul you're talking about.

[Dawlish]

Very funny post SF, but I think even your best efforts at avoiding ramping are likely to fail. The reason being that in the UK even unrealistic snow hoping is better than none at all and is what keeps this forum busy during the winter.

So I've decided that SATSIGS is bad for netweather in terms of hits on the site and so have banned your organisation

I'm sure Paul would back me here!

I'll back you; mind you, the things I back usually end up having 3 legs and getting eaten sometime soon after they've run. I'd much rather folk back with me. It's more profitable.

Paul

[Stratos Ferric]

Very funny post SF, but I think even your best efforts at avoiding ramping are likely to fail. The reason being that in the UK even unrealistic snow hoping is better than none at all and is what keeps this forum busy during the winter.

So I've decided that SATSIGS is bad for netweather in terms of hits on the site and so have banned your organisation

I'm sure Paul would back me here!

Nick,

Au contraire: it's the only reason WIB remains a member - i'm sure of it.

The moderator badge under your Avatar seems to be writen in invisible ink! lol. Careful, you'll have OON after you. I know it's a hard cross to bear, but we can't ALL live in the mysterious zone of sound northern thinking. Unless my memory is playing up - and it often does - didn't you find yourself in the midst of one of the ramping hotspots last year?

That'll make the sitation worse if SATSIGs are driven underground, everyone loves being a rebel!!

Yes, but we're very good at spotting spoof ramps. Ren King was brilliant at them.

[nick sussex]

Nick,

Au contraire: it's the only reason WIB remains a member - i'm sure of it.

The moderator badge under your Avatar seems to be writen in invisible ink! lol. Careful, you'll have OON after you. I know it's a hard cross to bear, but we can't ALL live in the mysterious zone of sound northern thinking. Unless my memory is playing up - and it often does - didn't you find yourself in the midst of one of the ramping hotspots last year?

Yes, but we're very good at spotting spoof ramps. Ren King was brilliant at them.

You are on good form today SF , and me and ramping hotspots, what ever gave you that idea! I think I'd class myself as a middle of the road snow ramper with occasional doses of realism!

[Nick F]

Here's a map of what might be expected this winter interms of high SATSIGS levels if a cold snap/spell is imminent:

[Stratos Ferric]

Here's a map of what might be expected this winter interms of high SATSIGS levels if a cold snap/spell is imminent:

As Mr Meat once famously sang (well, many times more than once actually - talk about one trick cart horse).."it's all coming back to me now". I vaguely recall a strange fault line stretching from Sussex, through Reading, giving Abingdon a wide berth, and then on to Telford last year. Will be interesting to see how this season unfolds. The environs of Glasgow also seemed prone to the odd rumble or ten as well.

[West is Best]

Now I understand! I'm still giggling too!

I'll keep a wary eye out from the, what were we called? Ah yes, the South West Oscillation. I like that phrase. It implies we look at both warm and cold! Sod All The Science It's Gonna Snow. Priceless!

Paul

Marvellous stuff Stratos! And it's come out of hibernation not a moment too soon. Edit - brilliant map Nick!!!!!

Unusually, the south-west has been hit by a colder snap than many in recent days. If it happens again I'll start to think incantations have been chanted against the south-west levellers.

Edited November 4, 2006 by West is Best

[Thundery wintry showers]

The return of SATSIGS is very welcome as far as I'm concerned- I got a fair giggle or two out of the maps that were provided last winter.

The burning question is, will it snow in Carlisle?

[Terminal Moraine]

What a joy this is, Stratos. On a par with your indispensible guidance last winter that snow depths should always be the result of a vertical measurement rather than a horizontal one, advice, I'm sure, that was not always adhered to.

I look forward to further SATSIGS reports as the season unfolds and resolve to remain in the rather nebulous zone of 'sound northern thinking' even when temptation is great.

T.M

[Stratos Ferric]

What a joy this is, Stratos. On a par with your indispensible guidance last winter that snow depths should always be the result of a vertical measurement rather than a horizontal one, advice, I'm sure, that was not always adhered to.

I look forward to further SATSIGS reports as the season unfolds and resolve to remain in the rather nebulous zone of 'sound northern thinking' even when temptation is great.

T.M

TM, the thing about being in TZoSNT is that even the most excited projections are NEVER ramps.

[Dawlish]

The return of SATSIGS is very welcome as far as I'm concerned- I got a fair giggle or two out of the maps that were provided last winter.

The burning question is, will it snow in Carlisle?

Will it snow in Carlisle??? - see my sig

[Supercell]

The return of the SATSIGs scale of rampitude. Fantastic. It is hilarious.

Good to see the gritters out in force. You all forget, the council know before the met-office that snow is on the way.

Let us raise that SATSIGs level...immediately !

[Roger J Smith]

There's certainly a valid point to be made in terms of encouraging all observers to be cautious about the potential for cold or snow from any given set of maps, and I for one hope to improve through experiences last winter with so many near misses in the mix.

On the other hand, if SATSIGS is a way of saying there's no way the weather can turn particularly cold or snowy, then that could be a trap more for its own membership than anyone else. Even in this milder climate regime, surely there is some danger in going out with such bold assertions of the improbability of winter weather just as winter is about to begin, and Mercury is about to go retrograde in early January (not a good combination if you hope to see lots of mild weather).

Let's compare notes in March.

[Stratos Ferric]

There's certainly a valid point to be made in terms of encouraging all observers to be cautious about the potential for cold or snow from any given set of maps, and I for one hope to improve through experiences last winter with so many near misses in the mix.

On the other hand, if SATSIGS is a way of saying there's no way the weather can turn particularly cold or snowy, then that could be a trap more for its own membership than anyone else. Even in this milder climate regime, surely there is some danger in going out with such bold assertions of the improbability of winter weather just as winter is about to begin, and Mercury is about to go retrograde in early January (not a good combination if you hope to see lots of mild weather).

Let's compare notes in March.

Roger, you're clearly a bit of an ingenué. SATSIGs is not anti-snow or cold, quite the opposite, it simply serves to indicate the level of excess noise regarding prospects over real potential. It is certainly NOT intended to suggest it cannot snow; as last winter showed, it can.

[Roger J Smith]

Quite the contrary, I am a colossal ingenué. Interesting that in Canada, we speak of sound western thinking. We could also have sound northern thinking, but I doubt that it would involve a cautious approach to snowfall forecasting.

[Stratos Ferric]

RAMP WATCH

SATSIGs has tonight issued its first RAMPWATCH of the season. Areas likely to be effected include Glasgow, Norfolk, Suffolk and Lesta (wherever that may be), but all areas present potential for slight ramping if GFS continues to paint the right hand wall blue out beyond November the 43rd. The watch is for SATSIGs 1 type activity with frequent references to beurification, diburfication, berification and with the potential to spread into speculation regarding a white christmas. There is potential at this stage, with the right evolution of GFS, for this threat to be increased to cover S2 type activity. All readers should be alert, try not to get too carried away just yet, and be mindful to wipe away any frothing at the mouth before stepping foot out of the house.

Further updates may follow.