Happy Friday bloggers,
If you are a regular NBC Action Weather blogger, then you know a lot about the LRC. The LRC stands for Lezak's Recurring Cycle and was actually named by you, the NBC Action Weather Bloggers a couple of years ago. I have made two presentations of the LRC at national conferences, last year at the National Weather Association's meeting in Reno, NV, and also three years ago in Washington, D.C. at the American Meteorological Society's joint meeting of the Broadcasting and Weather Analysis & Forecasting conferences. You can read about the LRC if you just go back into the archives of our blog. All you have to do is click the back arrow on the calendar in the upper right part of the blog page. Go back to November, then click on November 16th when we issued our winter forecast. And I will be writing up a much more extensive report on the LRC in the next few months.
We started using my theory to make longer range forecasts during the past two years. A lot of skeptics have said, "so even if the LRC exists how does it help you in forecasting?" This was a great question, and finally during the past two years we have not only made forecasts, but they have been quite accurate 30, 60 and even 90 days out, almost to the day. This year we have taken it a step further. In the past we would always compare the pattern of today with what happened the last time through the cycle and try to explain that it is the "same pattern". And, it isn't just one day, but every day through the weather pattern that is cycling. Well, this year we did something different so no one could say it is a coincidence. In the January 2nd post, I showed the weather pattern in late November into early December that had already happened. We knew we were in a, roughly, 54 day cycle. We projected the November and December pattern forward and picked the dates in the future that the pattern would look exactly like. We then made our forecast based on the cycle we are still in now. Not only did the pattern verify exactly on those dates, as we showed it would, but the entire forecast has been amazingly accurate. Let's take a look:
We are 37 days into the long range forecast we issued on January 2nd, 2008. I will show the forecast exactly how it was written, and then we will see how it verified.
45 day forecast issued January 2nd:
January 3-15th: There will be two big warming stretches that could put us up into the 60s a couple of days. But, it will be broken up by two storm systems. One of the storms will arrive around January 8th-9th. This one will produce some rain and possibly some snow, but it is a storm that will intensify as it passes us. The second storm will arrive around January 12th -15th. This one could come as a very cold air mass is moving in from Canada.
January 15th-25th:
Arctic air will build in strength across Canada. It will be the coldest air of this entire winter up there with temperatures possibly down to 40 degrees below zero or even lower. A couple of strong Arctic fronts will move through Kansas City and the United States should go into the deep freeze before the end of the month.
January 25th -February 20th:
The series of wet and strong storm systems that affected us in October and again in December will return. I think they will be even stronger this time. And, the Arctic air will be around for each of the storm systems. We will have at least 4, and perhaps as many as 7 storm systems between January 25th and February 20th.
How did the forecasts, above, verify?
January 3rd-15th verification: This wouldn't be as difficult as it is just the next 12 days from when the forecast was issued. It warmed up into the 50s and 60s from the 5th through the 7th. A wet storm came through with the southern Missouri tornado outbreak on the 7th. It warmed up briefly on the 11th, and the temperatures were way above average during this stretch of days. And a storm did arrive, one day after we thought it would on the leading edge of an Arctic air mass. GRADE: A-
January 15th-25th verification: While most long range forecasts were expecting a warm January, the LRC was able to show exactly how the weather pattern would set up and look. Our weather team at NBC Action News issued an Arctic Air Watch for the second half of January. It did drop to 40 degrees below zero over Canada and the United States did go into the deep freeze. Kansas City dropped to 11 degrees for a high on the 19th. Kansas City had a low of -4 on January 19th and -3 on January 24th. The temperatures were way below average during this forecast period (9.5 degrees below average). And a storm did move in at the beginning of the Arctic outbreak, as forecast in the first period above. Grade: A+
January 25th-February 20th verification: The forecast called for a series of four storm systems, perhaps as many as 5, 6, or 7. I explained how they would be very similar to the ones that occurred in October and again in December. We just experienced the four storm systems, and they can be shown to be directly related to the ones that happened in October and again in December (and I will be making a presentation to show this). But, were they stronger and more widespread? They weren't for our local region. So, I was only wrong about the intensity. They varied in strength compared to the storm systems in the previous two cycles, but some were weaker and others were about the same strength, and we had wet storm systems in all three cycles. I said that we may have a 5th, 6th, and 7th storm system. In November these storm systems were disguised as they went north of Kansas City when we had our long dry spell. When this drier part of the pattern returned, the same storm systems that tracked north of us in November, tracked much farther south this time. And, we ended up getting three more storm systems and it was not dry the second time through the cycle. So, what will happen now? We are in that 5th through 7th storm system part of the pattern during the next two weeks. They are still a bit suspect but the next one is showing up for early next week. Let's see what happens. Grade: B
Remember, this weather pattern is still cycling and winter is not over. Kansas City is about 60% of the way through our snow season as we average around 13 inches of snow by February 8th. There is still 40% of the snow season ahead of us. Parts of our viewing area are now over 30 inches of snow for the season. I am still expecting these areas to get close to 50 inches by the time we are done. We will be issuing our next long range forecast in a few days. How do you think we did? Is this something you would like us to continue doing? We will try to get even more specific on the next forecast.
Storm #5 will be moving by on Monday & Tuesday. This one has been looking a bit different on each model run that comes out. This storm on the cycle in November was flat and well north of Kansas City, but later in December it was more amplified, had a southern extension and was a more significant storm. Which version will it be this time?
We will be discussing this on our newscasts at 11 AM this morning, 5, 6, and 10 PM tonight, and don't forget our brand new weekend morning newscasts at 8 AM Saturday and Sunday!
Gary