A Peek At Next Week...

Yes, I know everyone wants to know about the Thursday-Saturday storm but I figured I would throw you a bone about next week. The models have been showing a wide spread storm dropping a lot of precipitation across much of Midwest, Ohio Valley, and East Coast. Unfortunately my amateur forecasting skills didn’t see anything more than another storm with potential like so many we have seen all season.

But those with actual meteorology degrees and experience saw something else. They saw a potential “big daddy” storm that are ones that people remember for decades. While I won’t dwell on their reasons and analysis, I did find one thing that made me take notice.

The division of the National Weather Service decided they wanted more and better data for this storm and sent out a recon plane off the west coast to get more and better data. From what I gather, this is a very uncommon occurrence. Here is their mention in the afternoon discussion notes…

SIGNIFICANT SRN STREAM PAC STORM AND ASSOCIATED
ORGANIZED RAIN/WINTER PCPN FOCUS HEADING
INLAND SEEMS ON TRACK TO REACH THE US WEST
COAST SUN...THE CENTRAL US MON...AND THEN
POTENTIALLY PHASE IN ADDITIONAL NRN STREAM
ENERGY/COOLING OVER THE E-CENTRAL TO ERN US
TUE/WED AS PER SIGNIFICANT PATTERN AMPLIFICATION.
A WINTER STORM RECON FLIGHT HAS BEEN SCHEDULED
OUT OF PORTLAND FOR USE IN TONIGHTS UPCOMING
00 UTC NCEP MODEL SUITE IN AN EFFORT TO GAIN
ADDITIONAL PRECURSOR ATMOSPHERIC DATA FOR
THIS SYSTEM THAT MAY LEAD TO DECREASED FORECAST
ERROR.