Reforecasts

Ensemble reforecasts (Hamill et el., 2013) are available at the NOAA ESRL site. The site also provides real-time forecast data and real-time products, the latter having been calibrated based on the historical performance of the reforecasts. Among their list of products is an option to generate plots for a user-selected point displaying time series of the ensemble forecast spread of precipitation and temperature. The precipitation time series for my favorite point (32N, 111W; Tucson) have been consistent over the past week or so. Out of eleven members of the ensemble only one or two have been generating small amounts for tomorrow, roughly in agreement with the latest short-term model guidance of 10% POP (slightly higher chance of thunder) for tomorrow and Wednesday. The ensemble spread product is currently showing the next chance of small amounts of precipitation starting around 28 June.

Off and on I have been exploring how well the reforecasts handle fluctuations in precipitable water (PW) in and around Arizona, focusing on a month-long period centered around [the traditional Tucson understanding of] the start of the monsoon. I have been using the model initial conditions as verification. The data displayed in the figure below are from the initial conditions for the grid cell (T254 = 0.47 degrees lat/lon) closest to Tucson.

The figure contains three horizontal dashed lines for reference. Besides the line highlighting one inch of PW, the other two lines are labeled with approximate late-afternoon surface dewpoints (with a typically dry mid-level cap). There are 29 years of initialized data (and reforecasts, not shown), 1985 through 2013. Of those 29 years, 7 of the years on the indicated day were drier than the 25th percentile, 3 of the years were more moist than the 90th [corr. 1 Jul, original 16 Jun read 10th] percentile, etc. There are some interesting things to notice about the analyzed distribution during this month-long period. At the beginning of the period, on 20 June, only about 10 percent of the years have PW over one inch, while by the end of the period, on 20 July, about 75 percent of the years have PW over one inch. Also, it would be a mistake to look at only the upward trend in the mean, without noticing that the spread of the distribution reaches a maximum around the 4th of July. This large spread results in part from the fact that the dry percentiles (brown) level off for about one week, from 28 June until 5 July. The leveling off in turn is a composite from: (1) a few years that become moist in late June, and stay that way into July; (2) a few years that stay dry into early July; and (3) most years, 18 out of 29, which have a double peak--moistening in late June, then more or less drying out for an extended period in early July. A particularly high-amplitude version of this double peak was in the year 2004, when PW peaked at over one inch on 24 June (putting that year in the top ten percent for 24 June). Then the year 2004 dipped to less than 15 cm from 29 June through 7 July. Anyway, the point about the upcoming transitional period is that the ensemble reforecasts have a difficult challenge to meet in representing climatology, let alone for the forecast in a particular year to convey a sense of which days may depart from climatology.

Duplicitous shill?

Today that label was applied to Chris Matthews, in a The Huffington Post post by Joseph A. Palermo entitled Smearing Private Bergdahl: the Republican Right Descends to a New Low. Over the weekend I also read in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette a column by Tony Norman entitled Bergdahl case unleashes all the hypocrites. Since I agree somewhat with both, but not entirely with either of those analyses, here is my impression. Bergdahl was a first-termer with a healthy sense of compassion for and interest in the people of Afghanistan, along with an unhealthy lack of fear (and perhaps disrespect for orders). The enemy took advantage of his curiosity to capture him. Eventually we will hear from Bergdahl himself. But at this point I don't know why anyone wants to read into it any more than that. Although I've often been disappointed with Obama's performance, I'm proud of the President's decision to make and his execution of the exchange. I am as proud of President Obama, as I am ashamed of Chris Matthews' (not to mention my barber's) smearing of a captured, now released, soldier.

Warm Winter

As the Northeast prepares for yet another Arctic airmass, here in Tucson the bougainvilleas are doing fine. Most years in late February this exposed corner would be a convolution of bare wood, badly needing pruning. Of the 22 (non-contiguous) years I've now lived in Tucson, this winter was among the top two or three warmest. It's no coincidence that the ranking would be approximately reversed for the same 22 winters in Pittsburgh.

Affordable Care

Yesterday I successfully signed up for ObamaCare. That is, not only logged-in at healthcare.gov using the account that I had established with little trouble about two weeks ago, but also was able to list the available plans and to sign-up for the plan that I had already decided upon.
Since the middle of last week the healthcare.gov website has sporadically functioned for me at the point where it generates a listing of the available plans. The plans are displayed starting with the cheapest. I suppose that if you thought you never would need to actually use any of the possible services provided by the plans, and given that you need to sign up for one of the plans, then cheapest would be best. But for anyone who has ever been surprised by their health insurance company, the monthly premium price is not the only consideration. Unfortunately, the healthcare.gov website does little to help you filter possible surprises. You need to research that yourself and develop your own level of comfort based on the information provided by the individual company websites. For the purpose of doing that necessary research, it really doesn't matter whether the healthcare.gov site is fully functioning or not.
I'm happy that the ACA has leveled the playing field somewhat and lowered premium prices. But there are still games being played by the insurance companies. (Advance notice to my current insurance company: No thanks! -- for automatically switching me at the beginning of next year to one of your limited, new ACA-compliant plans.) It remains to be seen how it will all play out, both overall and individually.

Budapest Gymnasiums

In preparation for a tour, last month I reread Budapest 1900 by John Lukacs.¹ His chapter "The Generation of 1900" lists famous Hungarians, which reminded me that, among many other accomplishments, John von Neumann enabled running on a ca. 1950 computer the first useful numerical weather forecast. The successes of Neumann and others of his generation are credited in part by Lukacs to the schools in Budapest that by 1900 had reached standards comparable to the best ones in Europe. Lukacs continues on page 142, The most important impact was that of the middle schools, which were articulated into three kinds, the highest of them being the humanistic gymnasium—requiring, among other subjects, Latin and Greek, and attendance for eight years, usually from the ages of ten to eighteen. There were three such gymnasiums in 1876 and twelve by 1896 ...
One afternoon I made a pilgrimage to the famous Fasori Lutheran Gymasium. The site was off the normal tourist path, but was only four metro stops and another two blocks from our group's hotel. The name comes from the street, Városligeti Fasor, which means effectively City-Park Tree-Lined Avenue. It is somewhat more residential than the parallel Andrassy Avenue. The church building is on the corner of Városligeti Fasor and Bajza Street. (On the afternoon of my visit a public concert in the church was just ending.) The school building is adjacent. On the front of the building and to the left of the door is a plaque honoring three of their most famous graduates.

The plaque reads, from left, Nobel-prize-winner physicist (Wigner) world-famous mathematician (Neumann) and Nobel-prize-winner economist (Harsányi). The plaque also honors famous teachers of the graduates. Mikola taught physics (Wigner), Rátz taught math (Neumann and Wigner) and Renner taught Harsányi.²
Before the trip I had picked up the false impression online that most of Budapest's famous physicists had attended the same Fasori Gymnasium.³ Since returning, I found that the book entitled The Voice of the Martians corrects that legend.² The book's title plays with another legend, a running joke (pp. 116-119) that the reason for so many famous Hungarian scientists was that a Martian spaceship had crash-landed in Budapest around 1900. Immediately below the plaque at Fasori is a (presumably restored) monument,

which I translate as celebrating in 1905 what was then already 25 years of turning out graduates. The explorer/athlete seems to symbolize the highly competitive environment of the Budapest gymnasiums. Lukacs¹ on pp. 144-146 describes the high quality of the teachers, as well as both good and bad consequences of the environment.
Edward Teller and several other famous graduates chose the Minta [Model, emphasizing hands-on learning] Gymnasium, which was founded by Theodore von Karman's father.² So my next trip to Budapest will include a visit to the site of the former Minta Gymnasium, whch is now the Trefort School of the ELTE University.

1. Lukacs, John, Budapest 1900, A Historical Portrait of a City and Its Culture, 1988, Grove Weidenfield, New York, 255 pp., pbk. ISBN 0-8021-3250-2.

2. Marx, George, The Voice of the Martians, Hungarian Scientists Who Shaped the 20th Century in the West, 3rd Ed., 2001, Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, 427 pp., ISBN 963-05-7830-1. The hypothesis of a spaceship landing is supported on p. 118 by a map of Budapest showing the locations of the childhood homes of 17 famous scientists/inventors. [On the last afternoon of the group tour I took a walk, intending to retrace my steps, but got lost and headed south on what was then an unfamiliar street just as intermittent downpours began. I took shelter in doorways along the street during the heavier downpours. Now seeing the map on p. 118, it looks like two of the entryways where I waited must have been the childhood doorsteps of John von Neumann and John G. Kemeny.]

3. McCagg, William O., Jewish Nobles and Geniuses in Modern Hungary, 1972, East European Quarterly, Boulder, Columbia University Press. On p. 215 the main text and the footnote probably contributed to the incorrect legend of one school having produced most of the famous graduates. Nevertheless, McCagg downplays the specialness of the schools in Budapest, noting that their elitist outlook and emphasis on personal training was similar to other schools in Europe. Instead McCagg emphasizes the cultural and societal changes in Budapest that made a good education possible and desirable. From that perspective, the quality gymnasiums staffed with outstanding teachers, all competing for the best students in Budapest, were merely satisfying a demand.

Snow in Tucson

Noon today, Feb 20, about a mile north of 1st and River.

Python

Till recently my explorations of Python had begun and ended with typing 2+2. Then I stumbled across this arxiv.org compilation of lecture notes, where the author uses python code snippets to teach. I also had noticed, for example, that the Naval Observatory provides software now in three flavors: Fortran, C, and Python. So the recent extensive publicity about Python in the AMS literature was just the final nudge to explore more.
While reading about previous suggestions by atmospheric scientists for installing Python on a Mac, I got off on a tangent by switching to a new package manager. Having used MacPorts awhile back, I've quickly learned now to enjoy Homebrew. I wasn't exactly sure about the next steps following installation of a Homebrewed Python, but fortunately this programmer

brew tap samueljohn/python

recently added supplemental Homebrew formulae for installing numpy, scipy and matplotib. His formulae worked.
My impression is that someone starting out today might never need to learn another programming language other than Python.