 Poster: A snowHead
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Is it just me or is anyone else out there fed up of watching the forecasts changing by the hour!
Next year I'll not even bother starting to watch the weather (although I said that last year too!!!)
It seems that any forecast over 2 days is very likely to change.
Well I'll get back to recycling my yoghurt pots now because I've taken up the "Global warming is to blame" corner now!!!! 
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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So who's to blame - the forecasters or the people who measure the new snow? 
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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its weather it changes.
I prefer to see a website constantly updated with possibly correct information rather than left with incorrect information.
why not use the decent weather sites and see the changes on the maps for yourself.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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waterskibabe, just listen to Uncles Carled and Brian and Auntie PamW - they will never con you with promises of snow...
...but if they don't serve me up some decent snow in Verbier by the weekend (and blue skies thereafter) I'll kill'em all!
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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snowangel.,
Tell me where to look before I tear all my hair out! I go on Friday to Morillon and will be praying to the snow gods!
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Jagerbull, the fibbers
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| waterskibabe wrote: |
snowangel.,
Tell me where to look before I tear all my hair out! I go on Friday to Morillon and will be praying to the snow gods! |
look on the ground when you get there, or in the sky, anything else is guesswork. 
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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waterskibabe, well masmith, does have a point but also Hurtle, is damm correct too!
basically you cant change it, spend more time planning what to take than worrying about weather!
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Its like an addiction though.
Every spare second I'm double checking. And once you've started you can't stop i it really would be better not knowing.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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waterskibabe, Hurtle, Hear hear
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waterskibabe, yes, it's frustrating, but you need to understand that sites like snow-forecast are not actually, er, forecasting. In my book a forecaster is a person who looks at all the data and interprets it with skill and experience. It would need an absolute army of forecasters to do what snow-forecast does for nothing, which is just throw computers at it.
As I understand it, the reason the forecasts keep changing every 6 hours (it only seems like every hour....) is because the data are changing and therefore the output of the models is different - if you look at the raw materials (the GFS for idiots thread, not that I begin to claim to understand it all and am highly embarassed at being bracketed with people like Brian and carled, who do) you will see that there are a host of possible outcomes from any set of data. It might do A, or B, or C, or D. C might be just marginally more likely than A. So the forecast says C. A very marginal change in the data a few hours later might mean that A just edges ahead. So you get a totally different set of simplistic numbers, which seems to make no sense.
And a small difference can make a big difference. Today the temperature here was just a little bit higher than forecast - it precipitated like it said, but rain rather than snow. Actually, that meant the forecast was extremely accurate - but it didn't feel as good! Similarly a system can just take a track a few degrees away from that forecast - and when they travel fast, that puts them a long way off forecast track 24 hours later. And if some weather comes over a mountain or two, the way the air cools and warms as it goes, and the factors which make it dump here, rather than there, introduce mind boggling potential variables.
It's worth making a bit of effort to understand something of the way the weather works, if only to render one more philosophical when it doesn't pan out as you like. The weather is churning around in a very dynamic way at the moment (I adore that phrase "explosive cyclogenesis" which the Met Office launched on the public a couple of days ago).
I have come to the conclusion that I need to learn a lot more and get to grips with some of the information sources which the Ones who Know have told us about in the Understanding GFS thread. Looking at the output of the models, rather than the "best fit" answers which a system like snow-forecast has to produce, is more satisfying. Next time we have two days of rain, maybe that's what I'll do. Meanwhile tomorrow, I think the sun is going to shine.
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You know it makes sense.
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waterskibabe, Hi, I'm of to Les Carroz on Saturday and unfortunately I think we're both going to get rained on then  . It should start to get colder as Sunday progresses and hopefully the snow will return for a bit.. Does seem to have been a warmer winter than normal overall however. Wonder if anyone does a count of the number of rainy days a season at say 1000m?
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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P10DW, well I haven't been counting, but I'd say there haven't been an unusual number of raining days at 1000m this year. The warm periods have not necessarily coincided with precipitation. However, I would also think that one would EXPECT a considerable number of rainy days at 1000m, which in France, at any rate, is far too low to expect to escape rain. It's part of the trade off you make if you choose to have a holiday, or an apartment, somewhere low.
People who know more than I do about trends in the Alps do mostly seem to think, though, that the snow level is rising rather than not.
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Poster: A snowHead
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pam w,
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explosive cyclogenesis
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Nice! 
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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pam w, I've spent about 15 weeks in LC at 1140 over the last few years, between mid-December and mid-April. Until this year I have had rain on two days, and one was in December. I guess I am just lucky then.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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P10DW, yes, I'd say you've been very lucky. I have had far more rainy days than that at 1500m, and not very far from you as the weather flies. But I've been here more weeks - so maybe it's me who's lucky.
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FAQ
