Friday, January 7, 2011

Complicated snow event possible-- Cold still coming

The cold is still on tap as discussed in my last blog. As usual, the extreme version won't be as likely-- much much colder then normal, but some of the cold trickles into the pacific northwest and the core of the cold sits in NW Canada sending pieces down towards our region. Doubt we get below zero unless we get a quite the snowfall but lows and highs both average 6-12 degrees below normal for the next 10 days. The warm days will reach 40 at best and the cold days will struggle to reach freezing. For a reference point-- the average high for this time of year is about 44 and the average low is 25.

Snow wise--

As an arctic front drops through today-- a piece of vorticity swings to our south and and could bring some flurries or even a dusting of snow. Places along i40 in NC could see a couple inches from this event.

The Big Show is far from decided.

Set up- Cold air settles over the region and a strong shortwave heads east from the south Cali coast. Low pressure forms over the deep south and heads east. Because of the strong block over the NE--this original short wave gets sheared out and our low doesn't deepen and loses the moisture transport from the Gulf of Mexico. As a result, what was putting down over an inch of liquid over the TX to GA areas is suddenly very dry.

A second short wave races east from the Pacific northwest and at some point re-energizes the storm.The quicker this happens, the bigger of a storm we get.

How much snow is possible?
If its a smidge late-- we get a 1-2 inch snowfall.
If its a tad faster- 2-5 inch snowfall.

I'm not willing to commit either way at this time. Both pieces of energy are just coming ashore on the west coast and as they get close with better sampling data for the computer models, we should have a better handle on this.

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