When I Think about my blessings, the fact I work for a company that understands that what makes us what we are forecasting wise involves a lot of ditch digging research, is one I am eternally grateful for. I could not do what I do if I was just driven by agenda driven click bait, just wanting headlines and sound bites. We want to make a profit by serving our clients in a way that nails forecasts as far in advance as possible, and to that one has to be willing to real time battle test ideas. This is not to knock peer reviewed research, it is to say we have tried to make public our ideas way in advance. I do believe my skeptical look at what drives our climate does play a part in what is almost a blacklisting of these ideas. Despite being the oldest private sector person to be putting out a hurricane forecast, remember I did it where I worked before, our company is not even mentioned in the pre-season forecasts. And that we have the unmitigated gall to forecast where we believe they will go, and have had a good enough track records to keep having people pay for it, speaks volumes.
And the fact CFACT gives me this outlet to show WEATHER along with the comments I make on climate, is a huge blessing. The media pays no attention until it happens for the most part, then blames climate change, and so this outlet gives us a chance to show what we are up to behind the scenes well in advance.
As always, our preseason forecast was ignored this year despite coming out in March and having NOAA’s come out almost 2 and a half months later with similar figures. And of course the impact forecast we put out first in April was ignored, despite what has been a good track record over the years, and last years almost freaky forecast and verification. I have shown that dozens of times, no use in rehashing it here on CFACT.
For the next month or so, not much is going on in the Atlantic basin. However, when it comes back again, the idea we have on the big impact season looks good. In fact, the latest model out of Japan ( I think the JMA is best kept secret in long range modeling) is one of those runs that almost looks like it was drawn off our ideas. ( obviously that is not true, but its wild how it looks like what our analog package a few months ago showed).
Lets look at the last 6 major impact years on the US coast 2003,2004,2005,2008,2017,2020. Please keep in mind when we were making the forecast it was in March that we were looking at these years. The big key to US hits is the position in the means of the upper ridge around North America. When it is over southern Canada into the Atlantic, look out. Back in the preseason, by meticulously analyzing the pattern we were in during the winter and where we believed we were going to go, we came up with those analog years. The mean 500 mb pattern in ASO in those years looked like this:
There is that big ridge over NE NAMER into the Atlantic.
Here we are in July and what does the model see?
You can not get much closer than that. It means that we likely have the right play called, and for anyone that listened or saw what we were up to, there is advanced notice if this season goes wild.
Does it mean we are right? Nothing is assured. But what it does mean is that old school, ditch-digging ideas may once again have merit.
One has to admit that for modeling to see such things 4 months after ditch digging analysis said to watch for it, has to raise eyebrows among objective people that are not interested in sound bite hysteria driven by an agenda.
Its not just the JMA. You can see it in the US model:
And the European:
I have often called this “a ridge (tendency for higher than average 500 mb heights) over troubled waters”. So while the “Sounds of Silence” may play in the tropics into mid August after that, for the heart of the season, US Impact should be above the average as we have outlined in the forecast.
BTW where else are you going to get references to Simon and Garfunkel in a forecast?
Like I said in the last blog, if only I believed man was the cause. I probably would be getting a lot more people to look. May be even a shout out in meteo media outlets. But alas to thine own self be true.
And it it happens, at least you saw the Why before the What.