SATSIGS

[SMU]

Excuse my ignorance,but what is SATSIGS?? And SACRA for that matter? Have I been under a rock for too long,or are these things unique to NW? Someone please explain!

SATSIGS- Sod all the science its gonna snow

SACRA- Snow and cold rampers anon...

Basically its a little fun to curtail the ramping at the first bit of blue appearing on the charts for the Uk...

S

Good link shuggee......

Edited October 31, 2007 by Steve Murr

[shuggee]

Well, I'm in a ramping mood this lunchtime and have just enjoyed posting some charts in the MOD. I'm giving my self a cautious SATSIGS 1.5

[memories of 63]

Excuse my ignorance,but what is SATSIGS?? And SACRA for that matter? Have I been under a rock for too long,or are these things unique to NW? Someone please explain!

Just dug this out of the archive. Hope it helps.

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...

[SP1986]

lol Id never seen that explanation before its absolutely hilarious :lol:

[laserguy]

Excellent! Much enlightened now,thanks everyone.

[summer blizzard]

Do we have an official level 1 warning in place???

Also, i will be releasing two winter forecasts using different methods in the middle of November...

[Stratos Ferric]

"S*d All The Science It's Going to Snow" I vaguely recall.

Think we need to create a map for potential ramp hotspots across the UK, if I remember rightly some familiar and well known areas are: the end of the A21 in East Sussex; a large town on the edge Cambridgeshire Fens; a Shropshire town on the M54; and a Cumbrian border town - to name a few.

I daren't comment for accusations of bias. However, if I were to do so I'm sure that some some of those national routes might well figure.

[SP1986]

A simulated and predictive graph of ramping over the course of the forums years. An undeniable rise in SATSIGs ramping power!

[acbrixton]

"23rd-30th November:

This period will produce some of the most coldest and snowiest weather we have experienced in November for many years!!!!!!!!!!

High pressure will retrogess and link up with the Greenland H.P,low pressure will become situated over Europe this will open up the flood gates for a full onslaught of ARTIC AIRMASS.Many areas will see snowfall, Eastern/Northern will see the most with moderate to heavy falls possible

As the low pressure over Europe moves towards S/E England BLIZZARDS are possible causing disruption to East Anglia and the South East.

Frost will be widespread and often persistant all day."

From Timbo's November 'forecast'. A definite Severe Ramp cat. 4 (note use of upper case type, profligacy with exclamation marks, the 'possibility' of "BLIZZARDS". Quite shocking to see this sort of thing so early in the season.

regards

ACB

Edited October 31, 2007 by acbrixton

[Coast]

It may be possible to combine Abingdons and Telfords

Which if experienced around Christmas time, would give us an Abi Titmuss?

[BARRY]

The most snowless place in Britain is probably Penzance down in the extreme SW. It rarely snows there even on the few occasions that there is snow in places like St Mawgan and Exeter.

no it's here in south devon hasn't snowed since 94

Edited October 31, 2007 by BARRY

[Roger J Smith]

Let's party like it's 1739.

[The Enforcer]

From Timbo's November 'forecast'. A definite Severe Ramp cat. 4 (note use of upper case type, profligacy with exclamation marks, the 'possibility' of "BLIZZARDS". Quite shocking to see this sort of thing so early in the season.

I also heard the teacups rattling as the first tremor of the season was emitted. First strike to Lowestoft.

[SP1986]

That was indeed a severe ramp by Timbo, an equivalent Earthquake may have brought down high buildings.

[Rollo]

Definition of the word ramp from the new Imperial reference Dictionary--- to climb,to grow rapidly,to rear as if climbing, to slope from one level to another, to rage,to range about wildly. to provide with a ramp, to bend into a ramp,to snatch, to rob,to hustle into paying a ficticious debt, to swindle. a romp,tomboy.a disorderly or loose woman, an act of ramping,an inclined plane, a slope of a wall-top or the like between to levels, an upwardly concave bend in a handrail, a swindle, a stunt worked for private profit," A worked up excitment or craze" especially for some gain, an exploitation of a special situation to increase prices or the like.Ramper----one who ramps-especially one who makes a disturbance to cover the activities of others,a rampsman, one who ramps bookmakers(Fr.ramper,to creep,to clamber.)

Remind me-whats the name of the guy who forecast gales in the Daily Express.

[VillagePlank]

It's going to snow in London on the 10th November, this year. What level of ramp is that?

[acbrixton]

It's going to snow in London on the 10th November, this year. What level of ramp is that?

I am tempted to say that such a ramp deserves its own category (interesting to note that there is an almost total absence of local ramping amongst London members: we have endured far too many hysterical and almost always ludicrous 'Evening Standard' headlines screaming "Blizzards to hit London" [Mr Murr and Miss Snowraven are strictly speaking of kent and thus form part of the 'far south eastern zone of wishful thinking' (HQ Hastings)].

However applying the existing guidelines it is an example of "the wildly speculative ramp" and a Category 4.

Regards

ACB

[Snowly does it]

Delightful, the boy scouts are back.

Two questions

Is this scout hut insulated against the bitter northerly that is coming on the weekend of 10-11 November?

Has Stratos Baden-Ferric got his sledging badge yet?

Edited November 1, 2007 by snowmaiden

[Stratos Ferric]

Delightful, the boy scouts are back.

Two questions

Is this scout hut insulated against the bitter northerly that is coming on the weekend of 10-11 November?

Has Stratos Baden-Ferric got his sledging badge yet?

They let girls in the Boy Scouts now you know.

I've got all the badges SM. Cloud spotter, graph drawer; I even went to Norfolk once. I've been to other places as well, but I'd better not mention them.

It's going to snow in London on the 10th November, this year. What level of ramp is that?

VP, you don't fool the rampometer: you're just pretending to ramp.

[Snowly does it]

They let girls in the Boy Scouts now you know.

I've got all the badges SM. Cloud spotter, graph drawer; I even went to Norfolk once. I've been to other places as well, but I'd better not mention them.

They let boys in the brownies until the puppy dog tails got in Brown Owl's tea.

You've been to the snow capital of the East? Good for you, come again on November 10th, we should be under 6-7 inches looking at the ECM.

[shuggee]

Just FYI - the little 's' was annoying me sufficiently for me to expend energy to correct it.

We want a big 'S' and lots of it

[cyclonic happiness]

I'm going to poo poo that as well, as it may prove me wrong?...maybe? ....well it's worth a try?

[acbrixton]

What is this?

"I would be remiss in my position of SACRA founder if I didn't urge caution, at least until either GFS comes more into line or the N'ly is at +6!!" [Anti Mild today in the Model Discussion thread]

No, no, no. This will not do. Just as port is sweet and cats catch mice so too do the burgeoning membership of SACRA ramp: its what they do.

Of course it could be a devilish ruse designed to confuse the rampometer and lull the tireless SATSIGS monitors into a false sense of security. Rest assured: such nefarious trickery is doomed to failure.

regards

ACB

[mezzacyclone]

Medication time again!

[JJB McCabe-deluxe edition]

I think I can smell a mild ramp on the model discussion thread this morning, although it could be a justified ramp. Nice to see this early in November.

JJB