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RE: Snow Ratios

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Matthew Ludwig, modified 2 Years ago.

Snow Ratios

Youngling Posts: 4 Join Date: 8/19/17 Recent Posts

Hello,

At our office we would like to experiment with using the WPC Guide to populate our SnowRatio grids, as the NBM 4.0 is chronically low. While this specific issue will likely be fixed with the 4.1, a few of our forecasters have been collaborating with WPC on the SLRs as of late and we would like to maintain some consistency between our snow amounts and WPC's. Is there a way we would be able to set this element to populate with WPC Guide instead of NBM?

Thanks!

Matt

AJ
Andy Just, modified 2 Years ago.

RE: Snow Ratios

Padawan Posts: 99 Join Date: 6/2/15 Recent Posts

Matt - yes there is a way to do this via adding the settings below to your ForecastBuilderConfig, but I would exercise extreme caution because of the downstream ramifications (i.e. your neighbors are still utilizing NBM).   Unless it's persistently systemic it might be best to collaborate instances to go higher.  

   I will say SLR is one of the tricky items because we're forecasting over a 6 hr time span and thus factors like compaction come into play. Furthermore sometimes the observation quality is in question (most obs are over 12 or even 24 hour time spans). Having said all this I do understand the desire to have some consistency with WPC as well.

 

gridDef["SnowRatio", "primaryGuidance"] = "WPCGuide"
gridDef["SnowRatio", "secondaryGuidance"] = "NBM"

DB
David Barjenbruch, modified 2 Years ago.

RE: Snow Ratios

Youngling Posts: 21 Join Date: 9/2/14 Recent Posts

I'm glad you brought this topic up, as I'd have to agree there has been a lot of push, and for good reason, to use the WPC SLRs in the forecast process (e.g. WPC WSO Collaboration/WWD).   WPC seems to have a better grasp on actual snow ratios than the NBM, though there is still much to learn. Agree this needs to be a collaborated approach, but at the same time we're often using or at least blending a good chunk of WPC Snow Ratio into the forecast at this point. 

Jeffrey Craven, modified 2 Years ago.

RE: Snow Ratios

Youngling Posts: 3 Join Date: 9/24/12 Recent Posts
So if WPC SLRS are superior to NBM, then I would like to see the verification.   And if they are obviously superior, why didn't the Winter SMEs reach out to NBM MDL developers during the past couple of years to help us integrate their better techniques into the NBM v4.1?  

JPC

Jeff Craven
Meteorologist in Charge
National Weather Service Forecast Office
Pittsburgh PA (WFO PBZ)
192 Shafer Road
Coraopolis/Moon Township
PA 15108
(412) 262-1591 ext 222 work
(412) 522-5176 mobile/text
@jpcstorm


On Wed, Dec 21, 2022 at 10:03 AM David Barjenbruch <VLab.Notifications@noaa.gov> wrote:

I'm glad you brought this topic up, as I'd have to agree there has been a lot of push, and for good reason, to use the WPC SLRs in the forecast process (e.g. WPC WSO Collaboration/WWD).   WPC seems to have a better grasp on actual snow ratios than the NBM, though there is still much to learn. Agree this needs to be a collaborated approach, but at the same time we're often using or at least blending a good chunk of WPC Snow Ratio into the forecast at this point. 

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