Mild & wet "lion-like" weather 🦁

Update #591

Greetings! Early March is preparing to show its “lion-like” tendencies 🦁 — mostly in the form of rain and some wind.

If you read my spring outlook, you’d know that the region will frequently contend with wet weather thanks to continued effects of El Niño.

Seven maps you should see about spring 2024

Accumulating snow, however, remains a long shot. My snow bot will tell you if there’s a chance! I also have a weather bot that provides the forecast for the next day in the Hudson Valley.

Before getting too far into this week’s outlook, I can report that winter 2023-24 (December-February) was the 5th-warmest winter on record for the long-term climate site at Poughkeepsie with an average temperature of 34.5˚F — the same as winter 2022-23. The warmest winter on record stands at 36.8˚F back in 2015-16. It’s a far cry from the coldest winter on record which took place back in 1961, sporting an average temperature of just 21.7˚F.

As far as precipitation goes, it was the 3rd-wettest on record at Poughkeepsie with 13.6 inches. You can thank El Niño and our moistening atmosphere for that.

The week ahead looks wet on several occasions: Tuesday, Thursday, and potentially next weekend.

It will be in the 60s at times (like today!), but the mild temperatures will be overshadowed by abundant cloud cover and rain this week.

Monday: mild again, but with more clouds than Sunday

Tuesday: much cooler and dreary with rain arriving during the morning 🌧️

Wednesday: overcast and milder, rain likely at night

Thursday: dreary and windy with rain, especially during the morning 🌧️

Friday: clearing out with sun returning… briefly ☀️

Saturday-Sunday: damp and dreary weather continues — more rain possible! 🌧️

The week of March 11th may start out dry and somewhat cooler before turning warmer and possibly wetter late. Snow isn’t looking particularly likely!

New AI weather model on the scene 💃

This past week, the European forecasting center ECMWF made its Artificial Intelligence/Integrated Forecasting System freely available. ECMWF is known for providing the most skillful forecasts in the world and underpins many weather apps.

This represents a new paradigm for forecasting, whereby forecasts that were historically generated by predicting the motion of the atmosphere based on physics can now be generated by matching historical weather patterns to the current one.

I’m very keen on assessing the skill of this new artificial intelligence model for our region. On a global scale, it has been shown to have similar skill to traditional weather models.

Speaking of skills, one of the most important ones I've added to my meteorological repertoire over the years is the ability to code (in Python), parse dense datasets, and create products and services from them. Being able to insert yourself anywhere in the "loop" from when the data comes in through the virtual door to when it goes out as a polished product is becoming more important as the role of a meteorologist changes.

To that end, I present the 15-day AI outlook for the Hudson Valley! The dawn of a new era for forecasting 🤖 — I’ll be using it to supplement my predictions. I think it can be quite useful for understanding long-range trends at a glance.

I’ve even integrated this chart onto my website, with 4x daily updates: 10:00 am, 4:00 pm, 10:00 pm, and 4:00 am!

Stay tuned and subscribe for more AI weather plots!

Hope this week lands softly for you, despite the weather ✌️