Another Atmospheric River

[Mark Kranhold]

I just came up the hill yesterday and witnessed what I used to see when I was a kid in the sierras! Tall snow banks lining the highway, it was like that every winter growing up! Now its scarce!

[PV_Premier]

They did predict it...they just predicted it for last winter. They're only a year off in their forecast LOL.

[troutless]

Funny you should mention that because I was talking about the same thing to my father in law. Our conclusion.... Predicting weather is like predicting earthquakes. They really don't know what the F they are talking about. Anything more than 2-3 weeks out seems to be absolute speculation. I will say this. They got this storm right but it was when it was 10 days out.

10 days is not a coincidence.

As you might guess on some reflection, there is a large scientific literature devoted to weather 'forecast skill' - skill being a technical term meaning, how much better is a forecast than a naive prediction? Skill is distinct from accuracy. It is not skillful to predict it will be cold in January in Minnesota, or that, if it was hot today, it might be hot tomorrow too. Once upon a time I had some nice review papers but can't locate them now. Try a search on google scholar, there are lots of references.

What I recall off the top of me head is that skill, while improving over the past 30 years plus, still goes mostly to zero somewhere after the 10-14 day window. Weather is a highly nonlinear phenomena with chaotic aspects -- 'chaos theory' in fact had its origins in studies of weather prediction. It is just not predictable past a certain time horizon. So no, you are not going to see any reliable prediction of specific storms or weather patterns past a certain time horizon.

I should point out climatological forecasts, either medium or long term, are different entities. As are earthquakes. As I understand it.

[tascaso]

Does anybody else wonder why nobody predicted all of this before winter?

They only weather they can predict is when they step outside and look up! Amazing to be able to make a living that way!

[EricO]

Funny you should mention that because I was talking about the same thing to my father in law. Our conclusion.... Predicting weather is like predicting earthquakes. They really don't know what the F they are talking about. Anything more than 2-3 weeks out seems to be absolute speculation. I will say this. They got this storm right but it was when it was 10 days out.

Word.

Eric O

[winxp_man]

They only weather they can predict is when they step outside and look up! Amazing to be able to make a living that way!

HAHAHA! Im about to give this a try!

[Larry S]

Hey Aron,
Miss your reports.
Try this for an accurate weather report-
-
http://www.collegehumor.com/post/60555/this-is-so-funny

Best,
Larry S

[winxp_man]

Larry hope all is good with you bud! Yes I miss them to hahaha. I have been bass fishing all summer nothing record. But when water comes into shape I will post some reports for sure. Might be that the next fish run we will get into is the shad with the water release we are getting.

Hey Aron,
Miss your reports.
Try this for an accurate weather report-
-
http://www.collegehumor.com/post/60555/this-is-so-funny

Best,
Larry S

[cdevine]

Came across this yesterday issued by US National Weather Service out of Reno.

Reno has received 4.56 inches of rain so far in January. Wettest January in 100 years.
Tahoe City has received 16.04 inches or rain which is the 7th wettest in 114 years of record keeping.

keep in mind the data was through 1-17 and we have 1/3rd + of the month left.

Don't know about you guys but I'm getting a little stir crazy. Not many windows the last 4 weeks and fishable waters available.

[cdevine]

Came across this yesterday issued by US National Weather Service out of Reno.

Reno has received 4.56 inches of rain so far in January. Wettest January in 100 years.
Tahoe City has received 16.04 inches or rain which is the 7th wettest in 114 years of record keeping.

keep in mind the data was through 1-17 and we have 1/3rd + of the month left.

Don't know about you guys but I'm getting a little stir crazy. Not many windows the last 4 weeks and fishable waters available.

Got back from west shore of Tahoe yesterday. Thank god because that place will be shut down today. 180 is currently closed from Colfax to state line. I've personally never seen so much snow. In fact its already the snowiest January ever and its only the 22nd of Jan. Here is a pic I took at 6300ft near Tahoma, CA where I was staying. Def going to work on my high water skills this spring/summer.