Tuesday, December 7, 2010

What we know...

Many are asking what is known at this point.  The truth is not much.  But let's highlight what we do know...

  • There is a significant weather system heading our way for the weekend into Monday
  • High winds (25+ mph) are anticipated with the system
  • Near zero or below temperatures for in tap for the overnights starting Sunday.
As always the track is important but I do believe this will have a much wider area of impact than many storm systems. Still a few counties either way can make the difference between heavy snow amounts and more moderate or lighter accumulations.

A large number of model solutions have us receiving rain before a change over to snow.  Only a very small number have us all rain.  Finally there are a few models runs which deliver the dream solutions for snow lovers; heavy snow and blizzard like conditions.

I would be very surprised is we received no snow.  Even the rain and snow mix solutions are in the 3 to 5 inch range.   The one bad thing with that type of scenario would be the currently snow pack probably would melt with the rain before the changeover to snow. 

The latest hazards map show the axis of heavy snow has been tilted slightly to now include our area by a hair.



I am not going to stay up for the GFS model or the Euro tonight.  They are still in a battle for north versus south and I doubt there is a winner tonight.  (Watch me get burned by that comment.)  Tomorrow night will be the night to stay up to watch.  (I wished model runs finished before 1:30 AM.)

Anyway, goodnight all.  Sweet dreams of snow which can be measured in feet!

One last thing...

You can check out the a page which interpolates the snow/frozen precipitation/sleet/rain along with temps and wind here.  The latest two model runs for the GFS are saved and they alternate with updates.

http://www.meteor.iastate.edu/~ckarsten/bufkit/data/cobb_gfs/gfs3_gvs.dat

http://www.meteor.iastate.edu/~ckarsten/bufkit/data/cobb_gfsm/gfs3_gvs.dat

I think with a bit of examination, you can figure out what everything means.

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