Blowing Snow over frozen Great Lakes

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Joseph Moore, modified 7 Years ago.

Blowing Snow over frozen Great Lakes

Youngling Posts: 72 Join Date: 11/1/13 Recent Posts

The Blowing Snow tool masks out the Great Lakes marine areas when running, but it does run over Great Lakes water areas where the IceCoverage is greater than 70% and adds that to the area to calculate blowing snow for. At WFO Duluth we do NOT think this is the right approach because Great Lakes ice can move or dissipate over the course of hours from the wind or other factors, and since the chance for snow accumulating on that ice is often low, adding blowing snow in those locations doesn't make sense to us. Marine areas should not have blowing snow over them ever in our opinion. (These aren't just my thoughts but shared by most of the staff at DLH.)

Justin Titus, modified 7 Years ago.

RE: Blowing Snow over frozen Great Lakes

Youngling Posts: 7 Join Date: 10/24/15 Recent Posts

Joe,

This methodology was put in place after thorough coordination with the Great Lakes SOO Community. I acknowledge the problems with our IceCoverage grids in that it is a snapshop of the national ice analysis and not a forecast, but it's really the best we have to work with at this time. It will be a while before we forecast IceCoverage. There is a need for blowing snow over frozen marine areas that see substantial use for ice fishing, among other recreational activities, and also for other coastal considerations.

It's a difficult thing to handle, but at this time we don't have any better solutions due to limitations in forecasting ice.

Thanks!

Justin Titus

ForecastBuilder Developer

CR-GMAT

WFO MQT

Joseph Moore, modified 7 Years ago.

RE: Blowing Snow over frozen Great Lakes

Youngling Posts: 72 Join Date: 11/1/13 Recent Posts

Hey Justin,

I think there is a good solution in GLERL's ice concentration analysis. Allowing blowing snow over a particular concentration value (over 90% at a minimum, ideally at 100%) would, in my opinion, offer a more conservative and reasonable approach to adding blowing snow to areas of frozen marine areas over our own IceCoverage grids. (It appears there are menu options for the GLERL ice concentration grids in GFE/D2D but no data loads, so I'm optimistic that the data might already be coming into our systems.)

-Joe

On Tue, Apr 3, 2018 at 9:37 AM, VLab Notifications <VLab.Notifications@noaa.gov> wrote:

Joe,

This methodology was put in place after thorough coordination with the Great Lakes SOO Community. I acknowledge the problems with our IceCoverage grids in that it is a snapshop of the national ice analysis and not a forecast, but it's really the best we have to work with at this time. It will be a while before we forecast IceCoverage. There is a need for blowing snow over frozen marine areas that see substantial use for ice fishing, among other recreational activities, and also for other coastal considerations.

It's a difficult thing to handle, but at this time we don't have any better solutions due to limitations in forecasting ice.

Thanks!

Justin Titus

ForecastBuilder Developer

CR-GMAT

WFO MQT

--
Virtual Lab Message Boards https://vlab.noaa.gov/web/cr-soo/forecast-builder-forum/-/message_boards/view_message/3736039 VLab.Notifications@noaa.gov http://vlab.noaa.gov

Joseph J. Moore

Meteorologist | WFO Duluth Social Media & IDSS Program Leader | Open Source GIS Evangelist

NOAA/National Weather Service Duluth, MN

Justin Titus, modified 7 Years ago.

RE: Blowing Snow over frozen Great Lakes

Youngling Posts: 7 Join Date: 10/24/15 Recent Posts

Hello Joe,

The National Ice Analysis is actually provided to us by GLERL as the best source for ice information. They're both very similar right now...I don't compare them often enough to know how they compete.

Thanks!

Justin

On Tue, Apr 3, 2018 at 10:49 AM, VLab Notifications <VLab.Notifications@noaa.gov> wrote:

Hey Justin,

I think there is a good solution in GLERL's ice concentration analysis. Allowing blowing snow over a particular concentration value (over 90% at a minimum, ideally at 100%) would, in my opinion, offer a more conservative and reasonable approach to adding blowing snow to areas of frozen marine areas over our own IceCoverage grids. (It appears there are menu options for the GLERL ice concentration grids in GFE/D2D but no data loads, so I'm optimistic that the data might already be coming into our systems.)

-Joe

On Tue, Apr 3, 2018 at 9:37 AM, VLab Notifications <VLab.Notifications@noaa.gov> wrote:
Joe,

This methodology was put in place after thorough coordination with the Great Lakes SOO Community. I acknowledge the problems with our IceCoverage grids in that it is a snapshop of the national ice analysis and not a forecast, but it's really the best we have to work with at this time. It will be a while before we forecast IceCoverage. There is a need for blowing snow over frozen marine areas that see substantial use for ice fishing, among other recreational activities, and also for other coastal considerations.

It's a difficult thing to handle, but at this time we don't have any better solutions due to limitations in forecasting ice.

Thanks!

Justin Titus

ForecastBuilder Developer

CR-GMAT

WFO MQT

--
Virtual Lab Message Boards https://vlab.noaa.gov/web/cr-soo/forecast-builder-forum/-/message_boards/view_message/3736039 VLab.Notifications@noaa.gov http://vlab.noaa.gov

--
Joseph J. Moore
Meteorologist | WFO Duluth Social Media & IDSS Program Leader | Open Source GIS Evangelist
NOAA/National Weather Service Duluth, MN

--
Virtual Lab Message Boards http://vlab.noaa.gov/web/cr-soo/forecast-builder-forum/-/message_boards/view_message/3736111 VLab.Notifications@noaa.gov http://vlab.noaa.gov