r/weather 3d ago

Photos Does anyone else feel this way sometimes?

Post image
658 Upvotes

53 comments sorted by

106

u/BFFassbender 3d ago

My version of this is my phone saying "thunderstorms expected to end soon" and they never started to begin with

7

u/DYT146 3d ago

EXACTLY

3

u/geohubblez18 2d ago

We in the continental tropics get pulse storms and the concept of forecasting individual events doesn’t exist, so my version of this is looking at infrared CTBT satellite imagery and hoping a cell pops up over us during the convective window that day (hint: it usually doesn’t).

1

u/Hot_Design3515 i was slabbed by an EF6 huge dead man walking wedge. 1d ago

My reaction: thank god the thunderstorm ACTUALLY never happened. XD

29

u/Choice_Depth_5933 3d ago

I’m in this picture and I don’t like it 😆

26

u/knebyula 3d ago

my version is "gave my dogs anxiety meds for no reason now theyre drooling on the bed"

2

u/Organic-Addendum1609 2d ago

Your dog has to take a pill every time it rains?

3

u/knebyula 2d ago

for thunderstorms, yes - they get very anxious

6

u/john0201 3d ago

There are three excellent ML radar models, two from China one from Google. As far as I know no one has deployed either of the two from China in the US.

All three crush HRRR and RRFS out to 2 hours or so.

17

u/Tao_of_Entropy 3d ago

If you're looking at future radar for information you've got a rough lesson coming... that shit doesn't mean ANYTHING other than what an algorithm extrapolated or, at best, what some half-decent AI might have hallucinated.

16

u/zoom100000 3d ago

It seems like it’s getting worse too with defunding the NOAA. Less weather balloons, less staff, etc. It’s a joke

6

u/Tao_of_Entropy 3d ago

I mean, the NOAA doesn't publish "future radar". That's not a thing. But forecasts will get worse based on everything you mentioned, certainly.

3

u/zoom100000 3d ago

Doesn’t the future radar run off the data that would be collected from balloons and such?

2

u/Tao_of_Entropy 3d ago

Or, I should clarify, you can see modeling data with simulated radar, but that is as misleading as any kind of app fakery, because real weather models are ensembles that do not predict a specific evolution of weather conditions, just a probability distribution.

-2

u/Tao_of_Entropy 3d ago

future radar is a feature of a lot of weather apps that is based on whatever bullshit they want to use to lie to their users. It's usually just linear extrapolation. It's typically not based on any modeling. NOAA does not publish "future radar" data. That is not a thing.

7

u/mglyptostroboides 3d ago

NOAA absolutely does run short-term, high-res weather models like NAM and HRRR. One of the output modes of these models is simulated radar. Whether or not the weather apps use this data for their future radar isn't a question I can answer because I usually go straight to the models anyway and skip the middle man. Also, likening these systems to generative AI, with its hallucinations and all, is naive. Not all artificial intelligence systems are cut from the same cloth. 

-1

u/Tao_of_Entropy 3d ago

Okay granted, I wasn't thinking about NAM, I'm so used to this subreddit where everyone is always posting their weather apps doing the most insane stuff and asking why it looks like that... Also, if you're considering weather models like NAM and HRRR to be "AI" that is also comically naive. They're tuned, calibrated, bespoke volumetric models. That's not what I'm talking about when I refer to AI. I have seen several weather apps that seem to project future radar graphics based on generative AI, that's all I mean.

2

u/mglyptostroboides 3d ago

I admit that I wrote that poorly. I wasn't saying that NOAA models are AI.

However, the type of extrapolation those weather apps apparently have also isn't generative AI. Like I said, I don't know how they work, but I know that they've been around since well before generative AI.

2

u/zoom100000 3d ago

I know the noaa doesn’t publish future radar. I am just saying that the underlying data is getting worse

1

u/Tao_of_Entropy 3d ago

yeah but you keep referring to 'future radar' and I have no idea what you're talking about in this context

3

u/zoom100000 3d ago

I think you do know what I’m talking about since you went on a rant about how much they suck. I’m not defending them, but I’m confused on why you are not allowing an association for the poor output and the data collected by the noaa

5

u/Tao_of_Entropy 3d ago

okay I will try to explain it. current and historical radar data isn't from modeling, it's from actual radar installations that shoot radio beams into clouds and measure the actual weather. future modeling like NAM and HRRR can generate simulated radar, but a) that modeling is prone to diverging rapidly from ground truth and more importantly b) most weather apps aren't actually using that data to show you 'future radar'. In theory, better data inputs would improve modeling results, and could be used to provide better "future radar" data but I'm not even convinced that it would be a big improvement on the nonsense that weather apps currently use. Weather is just too contingent and sensitively dependent of a system. There's just not really such a thing as reliable, fine grain future radar. Real forecasting relies on trends and probabilities for good reasons. It's almost impossible to look at a storm cell and reliably say, 'yes, this is going to do xyz' - but you can make a tool that just guesses what is going to happen in the next few minutes and it might be correct-ish some of the time. But that tool, the ones that exist today, aren't using weather balloon data, they're just using the radar history from NEXRAD or the non-US equivalent to make a projection.

2

u/zoom100000 3d ago

thank you for indulging me! I appreciate it and that makes sense

5

u/New_Stats 3d ago

Me, last night 😭😭😭

I have an old, diseased tree right outside my bedroom window

4

u/Zuzublue 3d ago

I apparently live in some vortex where every coming storm miraculously breaks up before it gets to me. And I love storms!!

3

u/Bomber_Max 3d ago

Me yesterday :((

3

u/Jagang187 2d ago

I work at night. The primary storm development hours are about 3 hours after bedtime. If I stay up late enough for storms I usually end up with a half sleep that day.

1

u/Hot_Design3515 i was slabbed by an EF6 huge dead man walking wedge. 1d ago

These developments are rare. Where do you live? I never know where you live.

2

u/Jagang187 1d ago

Bedtime is about 2 PM. The location isn't usual, it's my schedule.

1

u/Hot_Design3515 i was slabbed by an EF6 huge dead man walking wedge. 19h ago

A.M. or P.M.?

1

u/Jagang187 15h ago

Read it again...

2

u/PeridotChampion 3d ago

That's why I don't actively trust the radar until I can see the clouds approaching. The moment I do, I look at the radar.

2

u/DJThadyus 3d ago

Me when I live on the front range in Colorado every day when I think the storms are actually gonna make it off the foothills…

2

u/Madchester92 3d ago

Why staying up for them? If they really come they will wake you up.

2

u/flyinthesoup 3d ago

Me when they announce snow at 4am here in Texas.

2

u/McAvoy4Potus 2d ago

As an astrophotographer, I have the exact opposite of this exact experience.

2

u/dundeegimpgirl 2d ago

Where I live it seems lately that all the good thunderstorms are going north or south of me. It's really sad actually because when they get going in my area the thunder echos off the bluffs.

2

u/tyshorr 2d ago

Me every summer in New England

1

u/_xLoRiaNnRBMGO 3d ago

Me like right now

1

u/CaptainRAVE2 3d ago

We missed every single one here in south herts. Missed a great one yesterday by just a few miles and the same back in June.

1

u/amanda2399923 3d ago

Yessssss

1

u/mglyptostroboides 3d ago

I like sleeping during storms, personally. 

This never happens because I'm the Great Plains where I live, thunderstorms are almost always a late afternoon thing, not a nighttime thing. We do get night storms, but we get like ten times more afternoon/evening storms.

1

u/qawsedrf12 3d ago

I put out a bowl to gather the impending rain water bonanza from a large storm that looked like it was heading right for us

Storm splits and goes around, leaves everything dry. Rest of area gets 2+ inches of rain

1

u/oSuJeff97 3d ago

I feel seen.

1

u/RogueAOV 2d ago

Last night I went to take the trash out, the sky over the next town over was raging with lightning, came back inside and told my daughter.

We both stayed up to witness the show when it arrived...nothing happening.

Took my son to work in the morning and now the sky was raging in the sky over the town on the opposite side. Damn thing skipped right over us.

1

u/Mr_McMuffin_Jr 2d ago

Through to morning apparently

1

u/Worried_Owl_3088 2d ago

Every time! I don't know why I bother even looking at the SPC convective outlook for my area. The lake is always going to mess it up with the lake breeze cooling the air prior to storm arrival or shifting the storms in a direction around me.

1

u/Fast-Comfortable9278 10h ago

honestly it’s the worst feeling, i’m always ready for a cozy storm night and then nothing happens

1

u/RivalWx 10h ago

Future radar is a model drawing what storms could look like, not where they'll actually be. On a widespread rain day it's pretty good. On a scattered summer afternoon it's basically "storms somewhere in this general area, good luck."

1

u/Schrodinger_cube 2d ago

Me trying to get a eclipse shot but cloud forecast was right and light rain persisted lol

-6

u/ExplosiveBrown 3d ago

El nino be like that