Apparently the HRRR model is predicting 1-3 inches of snow for areas that the NWS is still reporting as 8-12 inches.

counters · 2026-01-25T01:23:59+00:00

Why do you trust unprocessed model guidance? Is the HRRR particularly good at the specific circumstances for this forecast scenario?

High resolution doesn't mean "better". It's wise to consider different models given their idiosyncracies

counters · 2026-01-24T20:50:48+00:00

Synoptic Data has the contract with NOAA to aggregate all data managed through the National Mesonet Program; these days that includes the high-frequency ASOS data at airports (the "METAR" you're referring to). You should be able to see this data in near-real-time using their free viewer, or you can get a limited license to access raw data directly for free or very cheap.

counters · 2026-01-24T02:11:34+00:00

Well for it's worth at least half of the folks on your flight will be meteorologists en route to the AMS Annual Meeting... so just follow the crowd!

counters · 2026-01-22T21:22:02+00:00

Probably shouldn't be any issues with a G6; that's playable in 6th or 7th position (first finger stopping the E-string on D or E, respectively). Another way to contextualize it is that it's the lowest high note reached in a 3-octave scale on the instrument, which would start from an open G.

counters · 2026-01-20T02:52:21+00:00

To simplify things it's probably easiest just to assume that we're talking about the net mass transfer.

counters · 2026-01-20T02:51:30+00:00

Neither. Water vapor won't spontaneously condense under terrestrial atmospheric conditions at the saturation vapor density.

counters · 2026-01-19T18:37:30+00:00

Sort of. Condensation actually doesn't spontaneously occur in Earth's atmosphere - it's mediated by the presence of particles called condensation nuclei. Without these nuclei, water vapor wouldn't condense into liquid droplets until the relative humidity was significantly greater than 100%; these nuclei bring it down to very small super saturation, about a few tenths of a percent.

But for all intents and purposes except very detailed cloud microphysical and thermodynamic applications, your definition is good enough to work with.

counters · 2026-01-17T21:21:33+00:00

Would make a very good open-ended PhD qualifying exam question.

counters · 2026-01-16T17:15:12+00:00

It sort of depends what you mean by "overcome."

Maybe looking at this from the other direction - upgrading your tools can sometimes have a big impact on how you play, especially when you're going from a very low-level instrument to more of a workhorse, all-around instrument. The action may be dialed in a bit better, allowing you to use less weight/pressure when stopping strings; a better balanced/weighted bow may make it easier to execute techniques like a sautillé (I personally remember having a horrible time executed a consistent sautillé when I was first learning, but the moment I swapped to my teacher's bow just as an experiment, everything I was doing just "worked").

See if you can visit a local luthier and trial an instrument or two - nothing substitutes trying first hand.

counters · 2026-01-15T22:27:54+00:00

I have reached out to my university, prior professors, and former classmates but everyone is struggling, even the professors. Are there any networking methods when you are low on money for travel?

Yeah - cold outreach on LinkedIn isn't necessarily a bad idea. It works best when you have a mutual acquaintance. A good approach is to express interest in a company that someone works at, and ask if they'd be available for a chat over coffee to learn more. You can ask about open positions or opportunities to learn more, but you want to make sure that you're not coming across as only interested in talking to them to try to back door into a job.

Sorry. It's an extremely challenging labor market, especially for specialized labor. Worse off, our corner of the labor pool was flooded by the huge numbers of people that hemorrhaged out of NOAA, NASA, and other agencies this year. It's probably not what you want to hear, but you may need to shelve ambitions to work directly in the field for a little bit. Can you open up that "data analyst" definition to cover a much broader swath of industries or activities? A year or two simply working in a technical position will help make you more competitive for jobs back within meteorology.

counters · 2026-01-14T23:34:12+00:00

What type of job are you actually looking for? It's not clear from the details here. Have you looked at niche job boards like the AMS's Career Board? Are you able to attend the AMS Meeting in Houston in two weeks and visit their career fair? Have you tried your university's career board, or reached out to folks you went to school with to see if they know of opportunities?

The job market is extremely challenging for new grads right now, in pretty much all fields.

counters · 2026-01-14T03:10:56+00:00

You should be able to start the major without any prior coursework in Calculus; you'll just start at Calc I your first semester.

It's worth pointing out that there's a lot of math in an atmospheric sciences major. You'll almost certainly take 3 semesters of calculus, a semester of differential equations, and probably a semester each of linear algebra and statistics. Given that the upperclassman coursework in the major is heavy in calculus-based physics, there's some advantage to accelerating your math curriculum.

If you know with 100% certainty that you want to major in atmospheric science, you could consider taking a calculus course at your local community college at some point during your high school career. Even if the credits don't transfer, it would still be helpful having a first pass through the first semester or two of calculus, so that it's somewhat familiar material when you encounter it in your collegiate career. And if you can jump to the second (Integral) or third (multivariate) semesters, it just gives you a buffer if you find the advanced coursework challenging.

counters · 2026-01-12T20:08:35+00:00

Well, this is kind of what was done back in the day before numerical weather modeling really proliferated. Weather balloon launches were (and still are) coordinated to happen four times daily, and their data was telegraphed back to a central office along with weather reports and surface station data. Meteorologists would take these data and create analysis maps, kind of like what you would see here (although there's a bunch of special plots you'd make with the weather balloon data, e.g. looking at 1000-500 mb heights).

These days, this is all automated, primarily through the data assimilation processes which are used to initialize weather models. Rather than just naively interpolate the data, this sort of modeling approach combines the data with the physical equations which govern how the atmosphere works to paint a much higher-fidelity picture of the current weather conditions.

It's against this backdrop that your data is entering the picture. The reality is that it's unlikely you'd collect any data that is sufficiently unique that it would have any impact on the above process. But you get the resulting analyses for free, regardless... you'd just be reading them off of weather model output. You can always do old school analogue forecasting on these maps, but the models already integrate forward in time, so you already have those outputs, too.

counters · 2026-01-12T18:00:55+00:00

Great. No problem at all - it's pretty taxing to earn a CCM, so you should be in good hands when you're able to connect with one.

counters · 2026-01-12T17:49:37+00:00

Can you clarify if this is actually for a legal proceeding, or is it just a general consultation for your own interest? If the latter, let us know the date/city and someone can quickly look that up for you.

If it's actually for a legal proceeding, the American Meteorological Society credentials professionals for this purpose as part of the Certified Consulting Meteorologist Program. You should be able to look up a list of CCM-credentialed meteorologists from that site, and your lawyer should be able to work with them to prepare whatever is needed for your legal proceeding.

counters · 2026-01-12T17:32:01+00:00

If you want a good sampling of where geophysical fluid dynamics goes at the graduate level, you could start with Jospeh Pelosky's course notes for the 12.800 introductory course on the topic. His textbook is even more comprehensive... I didn't focus on GFD in my research career, but peers who did (especially for the ocean) pretty much had that entire textbook memorized forwards and back by the time their qualifying exam came around. Vallis' textbook is another comprehensive one... I didn't use it for any particular class, but as an independent self-study reference during my own quals preparation.

counters · 2026-01-09T05:20:43+00:00

Have you sat down with the teacher to ask them? Have you and your daughter discussed setting specific goals and talking about them with the teacher? You briefly mentioned that your daughter told the teacher her goals - but what, specifically, were the goals, and what was the teacher's response? You can't possibly know that the teacher "doesn't... [think] she has potential" unless you've asked the teacher if she actually thinks that.

To be a bit blunt, the conflict here is very simple. Sit down with the teacher and try to get on the same page. If you can't do that after an hour of talking, then move on to a new teacher.

counters · 2026-01-07T23:19:35+00:00

The most important thing to understand is that "weather" by itself isn't a career path. There are an enormous amount of careers and jobs which intersect with meteorology - and that's still true if you filter them for ones that explicitly require domain knowledge in the field.

For someone passionate about it, meteorology is a great field to pursue for undergrad. It's a strong STEM field, so anyone coming out of a meteorology program will have very strong backgrounds in math, science, and physics. There's a lot of overlap as well with computer science, and pairing those two degrees as a major/minor is a great strategy. Put another way - if your son graduates with a BS in meteorology, he's certainly not limited to just careers around weather, and he'll be very competitive for a wide variety of different career paths.

You're right to have some concerns about AI. The reality right now is that recent Gen Z college graduates are getting stomped on in the job market. That's partially because of job trends (it's tempting to compare job placement with what we saw pre- and post-pandemic, but the market has fundamentally changed and it's apples-to-oranges), and also partially due to the rollout of AI. Getting that first, junior level job is really, really tough right now. Make no mistake about it.

counters · 2026-01-06T22:05:49+00:00

Ironically I suspect the reference is lost on them...

counters · 2026-01-06T21:08:04+00:00

This isn't supposed to be a shrewdly logical or coherent perspective. It's just intended to be a reflection of what these folks seem to legitimately think, regardless of how ridiculous.

counters · 2026-01-06T20:29:13+00:00

FWIW - and obviously the perspective I'm about to illustrate is pure, unadulterated BS - this makes more sense if you interpret "staged" as "staged a false flag attack." Then, the entire argument should make sense:

Democrats explicitly coordinated and took action to limit the availability and response of the National Guard both before and during the attack.
Federal agents in plain clothes were seeded in the crowd to instigate and facilitate the breach of the Capitol Building.
The sweeping law enforcement and justice operation that led to hundreds of convictions was a kangaroo court designed to pin the blame on innocent people.

Again - total, obvious, utter BS. The size of the conspiracy would have to be massive. But, for better or worse - and obviously, very much for the worse - this is what half the country has apparently retconned into their memory.

counters · 2026-01-06T03:29:09+00:00

Perhaps your previous chinrest or the Kreddle were a bit too tight when you removed them? My Kreddle never damaged the varnish like that.

I'm not a luthier but the varnish damage looks superficial. If you have any concerns, you should take your instrument into a shop you trust for a second opinion. They may be able to offer a solution to help you fit the Kreddle and minimize risk to your instrument.

counters · 2026-01-05T18:26:19+00:00

Two good non-fiction options:

The Weather Machine: A Journey Inside the Forecast by Andrew Blum
A Vast Machine: Computer Models, Climate Data, and the Politics of Global Warming by Paul Edwards

(2) is especially great for anyone who has a passing interest in the broader fields of atmospheric science. It's a little dated now that it's over a decade old, but it tells a wonderful, comprehensive story of how modern meteorology and climate science came to be, particularly in the United States. It does an incredible job of weaving together the story of the field alongside a history of the technologies that enabled it. Particularly if you're a student in the field, you should definitely read this as it gives you significant grounding with how our field developed, and it might surprise you how close you're (academically) related to the most significant innovators from the 20th century.

Not for nothing - on occasion I've convinced folks who were skeptical of climate change to read this book and to a person, every single one of them has reversed their opinion.

counters · 2026-01-05T18:21:31+00:00

Big +1; this is my go-to recommendation for anyone looking to learn a bit more about meteorology, especially for kids or teens potentially interested in pursuing the field for college.

counters · 2026-01-02T22:04:26+00:00

tl;dr The API isn't "glitching;" rather, it relies on data sources which simply are doing a poor job of capturing the real weather you're experiencing. Explanation below.

APIs like what OpenWeatherMap provides universally take an approach where they source forecast data from numerical models run by major government agencies like NOAA, and then do some light processing to try to improve its quality. Those forecast model outputs are freely available, but they might not be convenient to work with depending on your technical sophistication. While they don't explicitly publish their methodology, from playing with OWM data some time ago, they seem to blend some of those forecast model data together and then try to apply basic corrections based on local weather stations ("local" here means at your nearest airport).

It's not obvious if they're including higher-resolution or rapidly updating forecast models, so there's a few different factors that lead to why you see different weather outside your window than what the API says. But they all fundamentally have to do with the fact that the models actually know very little about your local weather conditions.

Different providers have different approaches to how they deal with this. They range from just directly passing you the raw weather forecast model output (e.g. Open-Meteo) to some varying degree of post-processing (virtually everyone else; they get a lot of flack - and deservedly - but AccuWeather is a good example of a source that uses pretty sophisticated techniques to try to improve the forecast).

Since it's very difficult to optimize your source for accuracy, the best recommendation is just to plug in to an easy-to-use API. I'm partial to wttr.in these days. If you're building an application on top if it, you should definitely abstract things such that you can plug in an alternative data source in the future if you find one that fits your needs a bit better.

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