# Weather Forum Guidelines



## deadheadskier (Jan 30, 2015)

Easy to find and accurate weather information is the lifeblood of skiers and riders.  In an effort to clean up the weather forum, here are few guidelines folks should follow.  These aren't "rules", just general guidelines to follow so we don't have numerous threads about a single storm or Miss Cleo predicting the next blizzard 20 days out.  

1. General weather discussions such as long term forecasts, trends, Farmers Almanac interpretations etc. should go in the current ski season's general forecast thread.  

This year that thread would be this one:

http://forums.alpinezone.com/showthread.php/131112-2014-2015-Winter-Forecast-(here-we-go)

2.  Long term forecasts are defined as potential weather events four days or more out.  For example; if it's Thursday, discussions concerning a possible storm the upcoming Monday should be discussed in the general forecast thread.   If it were Friday, feel free to start a new Storm Speculation Thread. 

3. Before you post a new Storm Speculation Thread, always check this forum to make sure one has not been started already.  It's best if we avoid having multiple threads on the same storm.

Hopefully if everyone follows these simple guidelines, we won't have multiple threads discussing the same storm or storm speculation threads without merit. The success of this forum involves user monitoring.  If there are multiple threads on the same storm or premature storm discussion threads, please report them so a moderator can combine the threads or move unnecessary storm threads into the general forecast thread. 


I'll leave this thread open for a week or so such that AZ members can comment on other guidelines that might make this sub-forum run more smoothly.  Keep it simple.  We're not trying to re-engineer weather discussions.  The goal is just to have clutter free, up to date and easy to find weather information within this forum.


----------



## Boston Bulldog (Jan 31, 2015)

Some of the ideas that have been bounced around, such as "A storm thread cannot be made outside of X days", honestly don't work. Many storms can be predicted over a week out (see March 8 last year), while others appear or trend poorly 36 hours before it hits. I say that a user should use their personal discretion while making a thread and should make sure that they have multiple elements backing up the event, rather than just saying the word on the street from a week out.

For me personally, I'll only make a call if I see that all signals are favorable and make sense, not if the EURO shows a storm 168 hours out. This forum has been self-moderated pretty well and it's thanks to good calls made by the thread starters, for the most part. If nobody foolishly starts a thread on a long-range storm without checking items such as Oscillation signals, Ensemble support and other meteorological mumbo-jumbo, everything should go smoothly.

That's My $.02


----------



## Boston Bulldog (Jan 31, 2015)

Sparknotes version: If you have credible info, post it! but just don't do it foolishly. What we have been doing works, but keep it clutter free by making sure you have correct information with support.


----------



## deadheadskier (Jan 31, 2015)

Why can't long range credible info be posted in the general forecast thread?  Why does it need it's own thread?  

Personally, it doesn't matter to me much.  Just a question.


----------



## VTKilarney (Feb 2, 2015)

I'm in the camp of people that would like to see a thread open for a storm once it is known with reasonable certainty that the storm is going to happen.  (Not necessarily exactly where and how much, mind you.)  Using this standard, I assume that the time to begin a thread would vary depending on the storm.  

But put me in the "common sense" camp rather than the "strict timeline" camp.


----------



## fbrissette (Feb 2, 2015)

VTKilarney said:


> I'm in the camp of people that would like to see a thread open for a storm once it is known with reasonable certainty that the storm is going to happen.  (Not necessarily exactly where and how much, mind you.)  Using this standard, I assume that the time to begin a thread would vary depending on the storm.
> 
> But put me in the "common sense" camp rather than the "strict timeline" camp.


 

Same here.  This forum does not see too much traffic anyway so I fail to see the problem.


----------



## Smellytele (Feb 2, 2015)

fbrissette said:


> Same here.  This forum does not see too much traffic anyway so I fail to see the problem.



+1 to your +1


----------



## dlague (Feb 2, 2015)

Personally - DHS's proposal is not that complicated and I like the idea.  Then again the will always be contrarians.


Sent from my iPad using AlpineZone


----------



## fbrissette (Feb 2, 2015)

dlague said:


> Personally - DHS's proposal is not that complicated and I like the idea.  Then again the will always be contrarians.
> 
> Sent from my iPad using AlpineZone




As BB mentioned, defining long-term forecast as 4 days is a problem to begin with.  Beside the fact that this definition does not make sense (WMO defines long-term forecast as 30 days+) it is arbitrary.  December 25th rainfall had very good model agreement 10 days before hand for example.

This guideline will put way too much stuff in the general forecast thread.  I don't want to sieve through general info about the farmer almanac or seasonal forecasts to discuss a particular weather event.

Anything from nowcasting to medium-range forecasts (up to 10 days) should be fair game.  Extended (10+ days) and long-term (30+days) can go in the general thread.

The guideline should simply say:

- make sure a thread does not already exist before starting a new one
- make sure there is a reasonable chance this will occur (if you don't know what this means, you should not start a thread to begin with).

There are rarely more than 3 active thread in here so this is over-regulating IMO.

One think I would like to see however is a ban on climate change debates, which have nothing to do with weather.  (Yes, I know I partake in those debates, but never as the instigator, and despite my best intentions, I always get sucked in.  So by all means let's get rid of them).


----------



## Boston Bulldog (Feb 2, 2015)

fbrissette said:


> As BB mentioned, defining long-term forecast as 4 days is a problem to begin with.  Beside the fact that this definition does not make sense (WMO defines long-term forecast as 30 days+) it is arbitrary.  December 25th rainfall had very good model agreement 10 days before hand for example.
> 
> This guideline will put way too much stuff in the general forecast thread.  I don't want to sieve through general info about the farmer almanac or seasonal forecasts to discuss a particular weather event.
> 
> ...



Bingo. Couldn't have said it better myself.


----------



## BenedictGomez (Feb 2, 2015)

VTKilarney said:


> *I'm in the camp of people that would like to see a thread open for a storm once it is known with reasonable certainty that the storm is going to happen.*



Three days it is then.    Makes sense.  Four tops.  Anything else is layers of speculation, and honestly, if you (not you personally) disagree with that statement you haven't spent much time tracking/following east coast winter storms.



fbrissette said:


> * (up to 10 days)  should be fair game.*



Ten days is completely ridiculous, and would more often than not (much more often than not) be a complete waste of time.

EDIT: decreased sarcasm


----------



## deadheadskier (Feb 2, 2015)

Keep in mind fellas.....these are loose "rules".   

The repeat threads is the most important thing to avoid IMO.


----------



## gmcunni (Feb 2, 2015)

i liked the "Storm Speculation - _DATE_" that seemed to work in the past


----------



## fbrissette (Feb 3, 2015)

BenedictGomez said:


> Three days it is then.    Makes sense.  Four tops.  Anything else is layers of speculation, and honestly, if you (not you personally) disagree with that statement you haven't spent much time tracking/following east coast winter storms.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



For crying out loud BG, nobody is saying that all frickin storms ought to be discussed 10 days ahead.  Yes it would be ridiculous in most cases.   The point is that there are cases worth discussing more than 3-4 days ahead.


----------



## hammer (Feb 3, 2015)

gmcunni said:


> i liked the "Storm Speculation - _DATE_" that seemed to work in the past


+1

Start with speculation and then update the title if the storm forecast confidence is high enough.

This is all a suggestion to others, I'm not too crazy about moderating weather posts if the only issue is that someone didn't have the correct title or started a thread too early...


----------



## deadheadskier (Feb 3, 2015)

Thanks for the input everyone.  We'll let common sense rule for the most part.  The only thing that will get moderated at this time is multiple threads about the same storm.


----------

