Black Bishop WX

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[blackbishopwx]

The loneliest temperature.

[blackbishopwx]

New Hampshire police issue arrest warrant for Punxsutawney Phil

Via WMUR News in New Hampshire, the police department in the town of Merrimack, a suburb of Manchester, NH, is fed up with the groundhog's prediction of 6 more weeks of winter. Their discontent is not due to Phil's inaccuracy, as this winter has continued to remain brutal for much if not all of New England. Instead, police are now on the hunt for Phil because he failed to mention the several feet of snow that would continue to accumulate during this cold and drawn-out winter.

Here at Black Bishop WX, we don't take kindly to public officials harassing us hard-working meteorologists over our predictions, especially correct ones. It was egregious enough when New York Governor Andrew Cuomo lashed out at NWS forecasters for their extremely accurate prediction of Buffalo's 2014 lake-effect snow event, but they are intelligent people capable of coping with unjust criticism. YOU LEAVE OUR CUTE FUZZY METEOROLOGISTS ALONE, NEW HAMPSHIRE! IF YOU'RE TOO STUPID TO FIGURE OUT THAT 6 MORE WEEKS OF WINTER IS PROBABLY GONNA MEAN A LOT MORE SNOW, YOU SHOULD GO MOVE SOMEWHERE NICER LIKE MOST OF YOUR STATE'S ANCESTORS DID. YOUR MOST FAMOUS MONUMENT DOESN'T EVEN EXIST ANYMORE PROBABLY DUE TO EROSION CAUSED BY ALL THE SHITTY WINTER WEATHER YOU GET. YOU ARE NOTHING, NEW HAMPSHIRE. NOTHING.

Sorry, I got a little carried away, but the take-home point remains that we at Black Bishop WX will do anything to protect our fellow meteorologists, even if they aren't our own species.

In their statement, police described Punxsutwney Phil as armed and dangerous and discouraged the public from approaching him. This is the first sensible point mentioned by Merrimack's finest, who clearly recalled an incident on Groundhog Day in Wisconsin. Jimmy the Groundhog, Phil's fellow rodent forecaster in Sun Prairie, WI, did not take kindly to Mayor Jon Fruend's skepticism of his prediction.

Well played, Jimmy.

[blackbishopwx]

The New York City metro received a solid amount of sleet this morning, and a whole bunch of people thought it was hail.

Now that's just silly.

Although both types of precipitation consist of icy pellets, Accuweather.com points out a few simple keys to distinguish between the two.

[blackbishopwx]

Every state's perspective of rain according to Twitter

Anytime it rains, regardless of what part of the country you live in, you will undoubtedly hear friends, neighbors, coworkers, and complete strangers speak their minds on how they feel about the falling liquid.

“This is great! We really need this rain since we’re in a drought,” your cousin casually mentions to you. “I’m sick of this wet bullshit! When is the rain gonna stop?” your dog asks you after miraculously teaching itself how to speak English.

With social media rapidly becoming a platform for all individuals to air their voices on every kind of subject, including the weather, we frisked our way through Twitter to learn more about yall’s opinions of rain. Using twitter’s advanced search feature, we counted the number of bothpositive and negative tweets referring to rain within each state.

In order for your opinion about the weather to matter on Twitter, you must follow an exact procedure while typing. First, type the hashtag symbol (also known as the pound sign for those of you awaking from a 6 year coma). This hashtag is immediately followed by your state’s postal abbreviation which is then followed by “WX”. No spaces. Anybody who knows anything about Twitter weather already knows this. Twitter’s advanced search page, pictured above, shows “#ALWX” typed in the box adjacent to “These hashtags” which narrows down the search to weather in Alabama. For this study, the only key word we searched is “rain” meaning for the example above, only tweets containing both #ALWX and the word “rain” will appear.

Finally, the positive box at the bottom is checked, for which Twitter uses a highly advanced algorithm to determine whether or not a tweet is happy or sad.

Yes, positive means a smiley face. This is science. I hopefully don’t have to spell out for you what string is required for Twitter to consider a tweet as negative.

Using this procedure, we counted the total number of negative and positive tweets for each state. Here are the results.

As a whole, over 70% of the 1,200+ tweets referring to rain and a state’s weather hashtag had smiley faces as opposed to frowny faces. NICE WORK, AMERICA! It’s important to note that the opinions tweeted do not necessarily mean the tweeter likes or dislikes rain. A very high ratio of these tweets, for which we scoffed at the idea of counting, contained people’s positive or negative opinions of there being NO RAIN at their current location. Due to the limitations of the very basic algorithm listed under Twitter’s “advanced” search, we will assume that positive tweets about rain refer to the tweeter being content with whether or not it is raining, and vice versa for negative tweets.

To see if we could identify any geographical trends regarding Twitter’s contempt for liquid precipitation, we mapped out each state’s ratio of positive to total opinionated tweets about rain.

Even with the generally small sample sizes for each state, certain trends already appear such as the Pacific Northwest being sick of rain occurring every damn day. Meanwhile, much of the Desert West, appears to welcome rain any chance it gets. The middle of the country is met with plenty of mixed results, but the opinions seemingly become more negative once the East Coast is rained upon. This is because the east coast is full of people who are generally negative about everything. This is science.

Now let’s focus on Wyoming and Connecticut where literally nobody has a Twitter opinion about rain. Wyoming makes sense because nobody actually lives there, but what’s your excuse, Connecticut? Are you all too busy living your Connecticut lives to even notice when it’s raining?

With sample size clearly being an issue in determining how well people cope with the wet stuff, we eliminated states that had less than 10 opinionated tweets about rain.

Even with the filtered results, it seems intuitive the people out west generally welcome rain more than people back east. The biggest anomaly on this map is without a doubt Colorado, a state in which 44 of 83 tweets with opinions about rain are negative. This begs the question, are people here not content when it rains, or when it does not rain? Again, we refuse to dive deeper into the tweets, so we’re just going to speculate until someone wants to fund us for this research.

My guess is that people in Colorado are sad that there isn’t enough rain, especially during the summers when very destructive wildfires are known to occur there. If they don't like the rain however, maybe they were looking to shred some fresh powder, but got liquid instead. Could it just be very difficult to light a joint when it’s raining? Who really knows what’s on the minds of Colorado Tweeters?

Dear #Denver: FRICKIN RAIN ALREADY! (Not where @sassafrasstic is camping though!) I miss thunderstorms! :( #cowx

— Princess of Pizza (@QueenofTacos) September 8, 2012

Rain scared me straight home during bike ride :( and now #longmont outdoor cinema showing of Shrek 3 in jeopardy. #cowx #dummer #fail

— melsidwell (@melsidwell) July 17, 2011

Just remember folks, the moment you tweet something, your words stays on the internet forever. Thankfully these tweets are just slightly on the silly side and nothing to be embarrassed about.

The important thing with social media though, is not whether you think positively or negatively about something. It’s about having an opinion in the first place and typing said opinion as loud as one can possibly type an opinion. The map below displays which states feel the need to speak their minds regarding the rain they may or may not be getting.

People really seem to care about their rain in the Southwest. Perhaps much of that region is in a drought?

BOOM. SCIENCED.

[blackbishopwx]

Good grief. That train burrowed it’s way through several feet of snow like Bugs Bunny. Meanwhile, here in the states we complain about being trapped in the house when there’s less than 6 inches on the ground. I’m gonna need this train to come clear the way along my street, and I’m also gonna need it to deliver Coors Light to me and all my friends.

(video from youtube user containerman2)

[blackbishopwx]

Our favorite National Weatherperson's Day traditions

Happy National Weatherperson’s Day to all meteorologists, atmospheric scientists, and weather enthusiasts out there! Each February 5th, the birthday of John Jeffries, one of the founding fathers of weather observing, we celebrate a day dedicated to all who help predict the future and advance our knowledge of the atmosphere. Today, we at Black Bishop WX invite you to partake in some of our favorite National Weatherperson’s Day traditions that can be traced all the way back to the 1800's.

Play weather history trivia games with your friends.

Write a handwritten thank you email to a fellow TV or NWS meteorologist.

Drink beer out of a rain gauge.

Auto tune your local NOAA weather radio broadcast.

Have a sling psychrometer fight-to-the-death.

Break all the weather observation equipment at your local NWS office.

Announce on Facebook that climate change is a hoax.

Watch Groundhog Day with friends (even though that was 3 days ago lololol still a great movie though).

Hold a contest to see who can derive the geostrophic wind equation the fastest.

Inhale unsafe amounts of helium from a weather balloon.

Cry deeply about nobody respecting the work you do.

Write depressing poems out of metars.

Purposely botch your local forecast because you know people won’t think any differently of you.

Play pin the red coat on John Jeffries. No really, the dude we Americans celebrate was a loyalist.

Make a youtube video about how Chemtrails are real.

Quit your meteorology job.

Enjoy a Blizzard Cake® from Dairy Queen.

Have any other favorite National Weatherperson’s Day traditions? Feel free to share them in the comments!

[blackbishopwx]

A Twitter recap of the #blizzardof2015

This week's major winter storm that impacted the Northeastern United States produced nearly as much snowfall as it did social media buzz. Twitter quickly dubbed the record breaking nor'easter a variety of names such as #snowmaggedon, #snowpocalypse, and #snowmygod. These names however, having been used on similar weather systems of previous winters, allowed one hashtag to rise above the rest, and thus the storm was widely referred to as the #blizzardof2015.

From Penn Station earlier to Times Square subway now, NYC transit is slowly shutting down for #blizzardof2015. pic.twitter.com/8gyHvCjFuC

— ABC News Weather (@abcnewswx)

January 27, 2015

Final, record breaking, snow totals in Boston and Worcester #Blizzardof2015 pic.twitter.com/rntYPqqpSd

— Terry Eliasen (@TerryWBZ)

January 28, 2015

King of the world! - Adorable dog on top of a big #snow pile in #Boston. #Juno #BLIZZARDof2015 (Pic: Paul Janosik) pic.twitter.com/mfL4Ydl00m

— The Weather Channel (@weatherchannel)

January 28, 2015

Watched the neighbors dig their car out for the 2 last hours. I need a nap now. #blizzardof2015

— yo quiero taco (@daykneeaj)

January 28, 2015

During said #blizzardof2015, things got pretty, shall we say, extreme.

Urban blizzard chasing is not easy!! Conditions continue to worsen. We've barely gotten started pic.twitter.com/Hm3ptMKfbp

— Reed Timmer (@reedtimmerTVN)

January 26, 2015

It wasn’t just the meteorological daredevils out in the blizzard though. Thankfully, we had the major national news outlets to provide more valuable storm coverage.

Jon Stewart Rips CNN's Don Lemon and 'Blizzardmobile' as 'Worst' Storm Coverage of the We... http://t.co/147MOeA9jq pic.twitter.com/1RVh86JWhW

— TheWrap (@TheWrap)

January 28, 2015

Whoops. How did CNN get included there? Surely Fox News can do better.

It's cold in winter in the USA, so of course, what global warming? pic.twitter.com/Z8SrlPQV74

— Alexander White (@alexanderwhite)

January 26, 2015

WE ARE DONE HERE.

Okay, no we’re not. Let’s keep going.

While the snowfall totals more than lived up to the forecasted and hyped values for most of New England, the nor'easter failed to deliver the same totals of white fluff to its western sector. New York City, New Jersey, and Philadelphia all experienced snow accumulations that completely underwhelmed the predictions of many meteorologists, including the National Weather Service.

Look at the snow forecasts for NYC and Boston tomorrow. Wow! pic.twitter.com/TKMxPhOmV5

— NWS Kansas City (@NWSKansasCity)

January 25, 2015

Not anywhere near what was forecast, but still a fair amount of snow in #NYC, & v quiet streets. @rtenews pic.twitter.com/nilZcQhoxb

— Caitriona Perry (@CaitrionaPerry)

January 27, 2015

With New York City shutting down all means of public transportation and ordering all non-emergency vehicles to stay off the road, the public reacted very rationally and with much compassion to the busted forecast.

Fuck you #blizzardof2015 and all "meteorologists", weather fear mongers and news outlets!

— Alex Gonzalez (@AlexGonzalezNJ)

January 27, 2015

President Obama should fire all the meteorologists. #snowmageddon2015

— Brian W. Snyder (@bws53)

January 27, 2015

Hey meteorologists, this is not the Price is Right. There's no prize for being the closest without going over. YOU ALL SUCK!

— Welldressed Hoodrat (@Hastimefordat)

January 27, 2015

This lead many despondent forecasters, including the chief meteorologist of the Mt. Holly, NJ NWS office, to offer their thoughts and even apologies via twitter.

My deepest apologies to many key decision makers and so many members of the general public.

— Gary Szatkowski (@GarySzatkowski)

January 27, 2015

You made a lot of tough decisions expecting us to get it right, and we didn't. Once again, I'm sorry.

— Gary Szatkowski (@GarySzatkowski)

January 27, 2015

This is a big storm further off to our northeast. New York City will see good amounts of snow, and for portions of New England it will...

— Gary Szatkowski (@GarySzatkowski)

January 27, 2015

...be very high impact. But for much of New Jersey, and for the Philadelphia Metropolitan area, this is a big forecast miss.

— Gary Szatkowski (@GarySzatkowski)

January 27, 2015

So what went wrong with the forecast? Most meteorology experts as well as amateurs had explanations to offer, while others just played the blame game.

Prob with QPF hugging is that often doesn't match dynamics. Strong WAA area (LI/New Eng) was always gonna be hotspot. NJ/PHL vort adv only.

— Shawn Milrad (@shawnmilrad)

January 27, 2015

@CNBC they relied too much on the Euro model. Other forecast models were showing the storm that actually occurred.

— Jason Decremer (@JDecremer)

January 27, 2015

. @NWS Director talking now about need to convey uncertainty and manage public expectations.

— Marshall Shepherd (@DrShepherd2013)

January 27, 2015

After every bust - communicating uncertainty and probabilities better. How about we just forecast better?

— Sam Lillo (@splillo)

January 27, 2015

So there you have it. Forecast models were relied on too heavily while good ol' fashioned dynamics with advanced meteorology jargon were cast aside throughout the forecast. Even within the modeled forecast realm, Europe's global forecast model (Euro/ECMWF) seemed to be the answer that most meteorologists used while other models that more accurately predicted this storm such as NOAA's Global Forecast Model (GFS) were neglected. It was clear that many weather enthusiasts didn't know what to make of the GFS outperforming the highly esteemed Euro.

The takes got HOT.

Could there be a changing of the guard? The European model is widely known for its accuracy but the American GFS destroyed it this time

— Chris Sowers (@chris_sowers)

January 28, 2015

@Glennbradley5 Yup,GFS was the KING, ECMWF was the JOKER and CMC was the Queen.

— Chris Beal (@NJSnowFan)

January 28, 2015

HOTTTTTTTTTTTTTT

National Weather SVC admits their models suck after blizzard fail. Are we still supposed to accept global warming models as settled science

— Tony Crawford (@Redleg94)

January 27, 2015

USA should ban the Euro weather model. Europe invented communism to shut down there own cities, now there "weather" model shuts down ours.

— EMAW Stormchasers (@EMAWStormchaser)

January 27, 2015

There was however, one major media outlet, that had a much more accurate forecast for the western portion of the nor'easter.

How @weatherchannel got the #NYC snow forecast more right than many others: http://t.co/tIf8SoTIjP via @EricHolthaus

— Capital Weather Gang (@capitalweather)

January 27, 2015

got a little mention in USA Today; credit to our GFC for the 8-12"! http://t.co/MJP8K48GVv

— carl parker (@parkertwc)

January 29, 2015

Wait, The Weather Channel? Seriously? So much for TWC’s reputation of overhyping all major events. Surely the meteorology community gave them their rightfully deserved kudos for this forecast.

@WXRISKCOM Funny you criticize TWC which did a stupendous job and Carl Parker who is a legendary forecaster. Sour grapes on your part.

— Perry Jr (@PerryJr101)

January 27, 2015

@PerryJr101 EAT ME

— WXRISK.COM (@WXRISKCOM)

January 27, 2015

Sigh.

[blackbishopwx]

A meteorologist's review of Into the Storm

For some unknown reason other than I’m an idiot, I attended the midnight premiere showing of Into the Storm expecting the film to be the next Twister. In that regard, the movie disappointed because it turned out to be a slightly more realistic version of Sharknado with worse acting. Had I actually done my homework and researched the movie aside from watching the trailer, I would have noticed the low budget of the film and gone into the theatre with different expectations. For that reason, I’ll go easy on the acting, and even *most* of the scientific flaws and gaping plot holes. The folks from US Tornadoes pick apart most of the meteorological fallacies in their 10 best and worst moments for a tornado nerd, so instead I’ll chime in on other aspects of the movie that irked me the most. First however, let’s give credit where it’s due and discuss the badass parts of a film with state of the art special effects.

SPOILERS AHEAD: If you haven’t seen Into the Storm yet, I recommend watching before reading what’s below unless you are a true diehard yolo-er.

NADERS!!!!!!!!!!!

Fuck yeah.

Holy shit, did I mention that the special effects were awesome? The opening scene with the nighttime tornado kicked the movie off to a thrilling start, and aside from the lull in the rest of the first act when the plot was being setup, it was one tornado after another, with little breathing room in between. Tornadoes on Fire? HELL YEAH TORNADOES ON FIRE! Who cares if that part is realistic or not? Same with the dude in the armored car getting picked up by the wedge and thrown above the cloud, you know, over the fucking tropopause, about 10 km high. These are portions of the film where I could care less if they are scientifically plausible or not, because they are bitchin’ as shit.

THE REDNECK CHASERS

These may have been the only 2 quality actors in the entire movie, and they played a shockingly realistic role: Idiotic, self-proclaimed storm chasers with no weather background whatsoever following the famous guy in the armored car hoping for video hits to cash in on. The fact that they were shown sitting around pounding brews in one scene WITH A FUCKING TORNADO ABOUT TO HIT THEM leads me to believe that their characters are a deliberate rip-off of a couple guys I know. Also, these redneck daredevils are aptly and hilariously named Reevis and Donk.

To be fair, I consider a majority of storm chasers to fall into this idiotic category, even if they aren’t so blatantly redneck. No, slapping an anemometer and some fancy lights and antennas on your car doesn’t make you a good storm chaser. Also, your storm spotter certificate gives you the credibility to spot storms, and that’s about it. It doesn’t make you the forecasting guru with the unteachable “instinct” that you claim to possess. Anyway, that’s a different topic to rant about later. I’ve pretty much covered the only good parts of the movie, so let’s talk about the really shitty things!

DID NOBODY GIVE A SHIT ABOUT THE PEOPLE THAT WERE JUST HIT BY THE TORNADOES?

Aside from the dad trying to get to his son who’s trapped in the collapsed grain mill outside of town (Oh hey, The Day After Tomorrow), nobody seems to give a flying fuck about anyone else affected by the tornado. The dude driving the armored car, whose character was undoubtedly intended to be a blend of other storm chasers with armored vehicles, isn’t just following these tornadoes for the money and publicity. He’s a downright sociopath. YOUR OWN COLLEAGE GOT PULLED AWAY BY A FIRE TORNADO, YET RATHER THAN SEARCH FOR HIM TO SEE IF HE’S ALIVE (the 2 redneck guys survived, so who knows) YOU SAY “FUCK IT, NEVER STOP CHASING.” The fact that they were even out storm chasing that day in the first place is somewhat maddening. Yeah I get it, your funding was pulled, and it’s make-or-break-it time, but couldn’t they have at least *acknowledged* not to mention *helped* with the search and rescue efforts from the tornado that hit the nearby town the night before? 

That was the major aspect of the movie that rustled my jimmies, but I’ll highlight a few other discouraging items too.

Where were all the other storm chasers? If this is the so-called biggest storm system ever, the greatest hazard would be 5 bajillion cars full of idiots blocking the road.

Why was the high school partaking in normal scholastic activities on graduation day? Nobody’s going to be in the library studying, hanging out in the gym, or walking through the halls with all their backpacks.

If you’re a high school guy trapped in quickly flooding basement with the girl you’ve a crush on since forever, why are you wasting time filming goodbyes on a camera that didn’t appear to be waterproof. In a more realistic version of the film, the two teens would’ve been going to town on each other like it was prom night.

US Tornadoes touched on this point, but it’s worth reiterating. When a tornado is about to barrel down on your ass, you STAY IN THE STORM SHELTER. The scientist's plea to flee via bus worked in the movie, but similar bad advice given by a meteorologist in a real-life situation lead to a much sadder result.

Anyway, I’m interested to hear about your thoughts about the film! My overall impression of Into the Storm is excitement for the movie’s release on Blue Ray so I can play drinking games to it with other weather nerds.

[blackbishopwx]

Today's tornado outlook: So you're telling me there's a chance?

You’ve likely heard the buzz by now. Severe weather enthusiasts have been excited about Saturday and Sunday’s severe weather outlook since last weekend. Earlier this week, forecast models were hinting at an outbreak comparable the one in the Southeast US in 2011. It appeared to be the classic Great Plains tornado outbreak that’s been seemingly absent over the last couple years. Tuesday I committed the rookie mistake of booking plane tickets to Oklahoma to meet up with Garrett for a weekend of storm chasing. I took a huge gamble on these models correctly predicting this storm system, but as the week progressed, I was reminded what most meteorologists already know: 5-day severe weather outlooks are usually dogshit.

Sure enough, as the week progressed, the model forecasts slowed the timing of trough that would generate the system responsible for producing the severe weather. With the timing being thrown off, some of the key ingredients for supercell formation such as adequate moisture and a lifting mechanism seem less likely. Output from the GFS and NAM models follow these general synoptic rules of thumb, and show little to no storm imitation before sundown on Saturday followed by a high-precipitation shitshow on Sunday. The ECMWF model however, is still keeping the dream alive.

The Euro output shows precipitation forming along the dryline from Nebraska through Texas as soon as 21z. Because its forecast only projects the upper-level trough ever so slightly faster than the NAM and the GFS, it remains mysterious where the lifting mechanism for its precipitation stems from. Perhaps the model is indicating high-based storms generated by diurnal heating that often lead to large hail and photogenic cloud structures, but rarely lead to tornadoes. If that’s the case however, you would not expect such widespread precipitation as the ECMWF predicts.

WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO TELL US EURO!? We know you’re the best model, but you work in mysterious ways. Will we end up seeing tornadoes today? If so where will they be? Whatever happens today, our team will be out on the road storm chasing, so we will find out soon enough. Stay tuned.

[blackbishopwx]

Here's a graphic showing the progression of Saturday's severe weather outlook over the course of this week.

[blackbishopwx]

This is a test.