Alta, UT 1/1/2013

[Tony Crocker]

Crocker himself agrees that the propensity for a persistent inversion is greatest in January

Dry in January more often produces inversion in SLC. Dry in March more often produces sunny 60+ degree T-shirt weather. The effect in the Wasatch is the same: dry. Recall that the 2 Marc's original assertion was not only that the dry spells were more frequent in January, but that they were more frequent in mid-January than early or late in the month. The latter assertion is true for the past 8 years but not for 30-50 years before that. Perhaps a modest wager might be in order for 2014 and later years?

Tony apparently only lives in a world of averages.

The daily averages were enough to convince socal, but the Alta graphs were a direct response to MarcC's request for distribution information. Admin seems to fall into the category of "Don't confuse me with facts. My mind is made up."

Here's another "non-average" stat for you. For the past 8 years, number of days per month with no new snow at Alta:
Dec. 13.4
Jan. 14.0
Feb. 11.3
Mar. 14.1

 

[Admin]

If that's what it says, it opened. They had all the signs in place on Tuesday.

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[EMSC]

So 500 posts to determine that the long term average is, well, average, but that for roughly the past decade there has been a 'trend' of a mid month dry slot in January in the rocky mtn west?

 

[socal]

So 500 posts to determine that the long term average is, well, average, but that for roughly the past decade there has been a 'trend' of a mid month dry slot in January in the rocky mtn west?

Or its global warming....

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[jtran10]

"REGARDLESS OF THE TRACK OF THE STORM SUNDAY/MONDAY...HIGH PRESSURE
LOOKS TO QUICKLY REBOUND BY TUESDAY. OVERNIGHT ECMWF IS A BIT
FASTER WITH THE STORM NEXT WEEK...BRINGING IT THROUGH THURSDAY AND
FRIDAY RATHER THAN FRIDAY AND SATURDAY WITH THE LATEST GFS."

Told you

 

[jamesdeluxe]

So it's impossible to disable the "Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2" tag when posting on a forum?
:x

 

[socal]

So it's impossible to disable the "Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2" tag when posting on a forum?
:x

Nope it's not.

 

[Tony Crocker]

So 500 posts to determine that the long term average is, well, average, but that for roughly the past decade there has been a 'trend' of a mid month dry slot in January in the rocky mtn west?

I was a bit lazy. I already had a lot of daily data from Mammoth so the quickest thing for me to do was use that. The recent mid-January dry slot is indeed widespread across much of the American West and not confined to Utah. But I should have known that dragging Mammoth into the discussion would make the Utards go ballistic. If I had looked for that Alta data and found the custom graph capability on WRCC earlier, perhaps some of the :snowball fight: might have been avoided.

 

[Admin]

But I should have known that dragging Mammoth into the discussion would make the Utards go ballistic.

And with good reason as it's completely and totally irrelevant.

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[Skrad]

I skied Devil's Castle yesterday. Some hardened windslab. Some debris. But really nice in between and very little competition. Was skiing fresh lines on lap 4/ no reason to do the Apron.

 

[Admin]

You're now back in town, eh?

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[Admin]

For those not in Utah, Peter Sinks is a localized anomaly, a sinkhole 2hrs North of SLC in the mountains. It has recorded the second lowest temp ever in the lower 48, just a year after they put up instruments in the 80s.

Dr. S. wrote more about the Peter Sinks yesterday when they exhibited a 46-degree temperature delta over less than a mile!

Wasatch Weather Weenies: Mother of All Cold Pools. http://goo.gl/mag/XmymiRX

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[Tony Crocker]

And with good reason as it's completely and totally irrelevant.

Really? It's complete coincidence that during the 8 years of "mid-January dry spell" when Alta had 32% of normal snowfall, Mammoth had 34% of normal on the same dates? What are the odds of that if Mammoth and Alta weather are "completely and totally irrelevant" to each other?

Presumably admin is now satisfied that the mid-January dry spell is a random and not permanent/predictive feature of Wasatch climate now that there are 50+ years of Alta daily data, both averaged and distributional, demonstrating that fact.

 

[Admin]

And with good reason as it's completely and totally irrelevant.

Really?

Yes, really.

Presumably admin is now satisfied that the mid-January dry spell is a random and not permanent/predictive feature of Wasatch climate now that there are 50+ years of Alta daily data, both averaged and distributional, demonstrating that fact.

Nope.

 

[socal]

Presumably admin is now satisfied that the mid-January dry spell is a random and not permanent/predictive feature of Wasatch climate now that there are 50+ years of Alta daily data, both averaged and distributional, demonstrating that fact.

Nope.[/quote]

What's the disagreement? Doesn't 50 years of data saying its true pretty much make it a fact?

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[Admin]

What's the disagreement? Doesn't 50 years of data saying its true pretty much make it a fact?

No, it doesn't. As Marc_C has pointed out already averages mean nothing in this discussion. If one year inversion lasts Jan. 1-10, another year Jan. 11-20, and another year Jan. 21-30, the daily distribution will look the same from day to day. Extrapolate that over every year for decades, and the effect is the same, just on a larger scale.

I'm really trying to drop this because no matter what I say I'm not going to convince the Californian. Really, I am.

 

[Marc_C]

What's the disagreement? Doesn't 50 years of data saying its true pretty much make it a fact?

No, it doesn't. As Marc_C has pointed out already averages mean nothing in this discussion. If one year inversion lasts Jan. 1-10, another year Jan. 11-20, and another year Jan. 21-30, the daily distribution will look the same from day to day. Extrapolate that over every year for decades, and the effect is the same, just on a larger scale.

I'm really trying to drop this because no matter what I say I'm not going to convince the Californian. Really, I am.

The problem is that Tony is approaching the question from the standpoint of a statistician, not a scientist. Primarily, he's attempting to apply a linear solution to a discontinuous data set, with the result of smoothing out and obliterating the specific differences that we're discussing. Again, his applying averages makes his entire argument baseless.

 

[Tony Crocker]

If one year inversion lasts Jan. 1-10, another year Jan. 11-20, and another year Jan. 21-30, the daily distribution will look the same from day to day.

So the "dry spell" is no longer "mid-January," but "sometime in January?" Remember, even during the 8 years admin has been in Utah the number of days with no new snow is the same in March (14.1 days) as January (14.0 days). This is actually very simple. If it's dry in January there's usually an inversion: cold, no sun, air pollution if lasts more than a few days, so people remember that. If it's dry in March it's sunny, comfortable, just an early start to what SLC gets as a steady diet in April/May. Nothing memorable.

Again, his applying averages makes his entire argument baseless.

The Alta graphs were not averages, they showed the probability of each date having no precipitation. There's plenty of volatility in the raw data but where can you find that the probability of a day being dry is greater in January (mid or otherwise) than other periods of the winter?

Oh, maybe it's the length of the dry spells? Alta dry spells longer than 3 days in the past 8 years:
January: 3 spells of 4 days, 3 of 5 days, one of 8 days, one of 9 days.
March: 2 spells of 5 days, one of 9 days, one of 11 days, one of 12 days.

 

[Admin]

I'm really trying to drop this because no matter what I say I'm not going to convince the Californian. Really, I am.

I'm also quite bored with this.

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[SoCal Rider]

Lalalalalalalalalalalala. (I'm in SoCal. Nothing to contribute.)