Storm Sliders

I was talking about the 15th

I am so not tracking this. I'll wait till we're five or less days out. But that's just me.

How dare you throw shade at my forecast office?

A good point. It looked like the confluence cleared the area at hour 84.

I'm probably going to get torn up for even suggesting this, but.... I'd watch for redevelopment in that hatched area.

Confluence made like a tree and got outta here on the nam.

A segment of the afd from mount holly. Focus with the medium-range forecast remains on the evolution of a southern-stream system traversing the southeastern U.S. this weekend before moving offshore early next week. Operational models are beginning to converge on a solution for the strong surface low that develops near the Gulf Coast this weekend. The 00z CMC has trended farther south toward the GFS/ECMWF solutions, though it does remain on the northern fringe of the guidance envelope. However, noticeable variability remains with the northern-stream perturbations that will interact with the southern- stream perturbation this weekend, particularly the predecessor trough in eastern Canada late this weekend. Of particular note, the 00z ECMWF is most progressive with this trough, which acts to slow the surface low near the Carolina coast Sunday night but also prevents much poleward progress. The CMC/GFS are noticeably slower, which allows the low to lift farther northward but also provides more of a kick to the southern-stream perturbation on Monday. The GFS has trended deeper and somewhat slower with the northern-stream system in the past 24 hours, which suggests the ECMWF solution may be a lower probability one. Meanwhile, a second northern-stream perturbation digs south- southeastward into the central plains on Sunday night, which adds substantial complexity to the interactions of the southern- stream surface low with the northern stream. Volatility with this perturbation is very high run to run and model to model. Notably, the GFS has trended slower and a little weaker with this second northern-stream perturbation, which may be suggestive of a slower push to the southern-stream system. Operational guidance seems to be converging on a solution in which a secondary low develops on the coast Monday night in vicinity of the first low 24 hours prior. The model tendencies are similar to the first low (CMC farthest north; ECMWF to the south), but the GFS is slower with this second low (an obvious result of the slower trend to the central U.S. perturbation). What does all of this mean? My conclusion is that the models converging on a solution may be a tempting lure, but I am not biting quite yet. The perturbations in play here remain offshore (prior to the 00z simulations, anyway), so I suspect some decent initialization errors are contributing to model volatility. Perhaps as importantly, the complex interactions of these perturbations are extremely sensitive to positioning/orientation/strength of the individual phenomena, which is a telltale sign to use caution in the use of deterministic solutions as a forecast starting point. I used a healthy blend of continuity, ensemble guidance, and multi-model consensus as a starting point, only subtly modifying the forecast to account for the increased southern-track consensus. Finally, I should note that we are still in the time window in which models tend to be too far south and too progressive with the southern- stream portion of these systems, so I maintained a broad-brush approach to distribution of PoPs (and timing) as a result of the remaining large uncertainty.

People will always do this. We just have to ignore them.

People are boring.

Spoken like a true Master Wx Expert

The problem that occurred here is that the system came in weak this time. So it didn't have as much of an ability to move northward.

The week is so not wasted. WE just had consecutive northward corrections. One or two wobbles is part of the process.

I'd hardly consider one deviation from the established northward trend of the eps a reason to lose hope.

I don't even want to look at this until we're done with this next one.

WHAT!?