When your crystal ball ain't so crystal clear..

For my longtime readers, you guys know when I am confident, I have no problem throwing out ideas early.  This is not the case...so, my plea is to keep expectations low :)
Glossary terms for shorter posts: EC- European model, GFS- American- GEM- Canadian.

The bad..

1.GFS isn't close and doesn't give much near us . Tremendous storm for eastern NC.
2. The Canadian is now good on wave 1, east on wave 2. We get 2 inches total, most Thursday night in Friday.
3. NAM- American regional model is south still.


The "wow"

European model has been consistent 3 runs in a row with 3-5 inches region wide and was a stronger system where 7-10 inches wasn't that far away (50-70 miles)

The Euro ensembles look better too-- for the first time. Ensembles are the model run 51 times with small changes to weed out model biases.

My thoughts-- someone has to blink soon. The EC being a better model is almost like those sprint ads where they say Verizon is better, but only 1% better...so, my confidence isn't booming, yet.

Timing-- Thursday evening, Flurries to an inch.

Friday night and Saturday- Holding at 2-4 region wide, not a locked in forecast.

About this possible event..

First, wow my last blog was bad. I expected no updates. The models were very wrong about the pattern and cold will come, leave and then come back in the time I thought would be mild.

Thursday may be a mess. Sometimes the worst traffic events come from small amounts of snow.. a slim coating is possible but with colder temps in place roads could get bad fast. I'd rather drive in 5 inches of snow when everyone knows to be safe then just a little when people don't take as much caution.

The writing could be on the all for Saturday for a BIG ticket event.  The EURO and GEM have not had it for days and those ensembles are not great either.  The GFS was great to watch rolling in but I had a hunch it was off. Here is why...


Speed of the short wave..

Wave one on Thursday is on the arctic front. Most storms need about 3 days or space or so to amplify (simply version) and some features in the Pacific Northwest likely eject the second piece of energy about 18 -24 hours too quickly... while the GFS shows it holding west a little more. (Credit to David Reese, Met from Charlottesville for the graphics,)

Note the blue dot over Oregon

This is the EURO...no Blue Dot.  The energy has already moved east. 

So, in summary I think the euro may be right on timing and the low doesn't develop as fast because the timing issue with that. Still, it could provide another period of light snow Friday Night and Saturday, with maybe decent snows into Eastern NC. 

Will do a more quick status updates after the model runs tonight..Even a weaker strung out low could edge north as we get closer. At this time, Thursday may be the best bet to whiten the ground in our general area and travel may be horrible for a while.

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Looking at the Crystal Ball

First, I should have taken a few minutes to update the blog befor the litle bit of ice that fell. In some ways, that was the worst case scenario where just ..02 liquid fell at temps in the mid 20s..instant ice everywhere. I heard of 170 wrecks near Lynchburg,and I'm sure that was common accross the areas of Danville, Roanoke and Blacksburg too. We did have a region wide Freezing Rain Advisory in place..but people often to head , listen or no ice on their car from their garage and they don't really know.  Bad, dangerous situation.

Anyways,  I don't expect many any need to update the blog in the next month. It COULD happen, but it likely be a minor ice event. Long term pattern looks mild for our region without little threast of ice/cold before late January.

The pattern should/could change- starting mid January and impacting us by late month. However,I'm not totally sold on that yet.

SO, if you hate winter weather, no news will be good news. Once a pattern changes seems more likely, exect more posts about time frame and possible events.

Weekend Ice possible

We currently have a signficant amount of cold air NEAR us, but the problem is there is nothing to hold it in place. So, we get a few colder days, brief warm up and then back to cold.

Big cold shot arrives middle of the week and as it departs another low rides up to our west, just as another strong cold shot pushes in behind it.

All the models have cycled through showing a decent snow to ice, then down to mostly ice to rain events. Friday- Sunday Time Frame

OK Smart guy, what will happen?

The Problems

Timing of the storm-- The sooner the precipitation gets here, the more cold air in place and the better chance for snow before ice and rain.

Models often underestimate the strenth of cold arctic air so, as the event gets closer what seems like a rather benign pre dawn ice to rain event Saturday could end up a little more disruptive.  I will spare you the maps, but some of the data has the freeze line way down into North Carolina and then moves it in 6 hours to north of Lynchburg. This won't be a typical CAD(Cold Air Damming) but once you get north of the Staunton/James river areas- the tempature loves to hoover at 32 for hours in these events.
Possible Outcomes for our area (Lynchburg, Roanoke, Blacksburg, Danville)
Danville is always another world in CAD events and I don't expect significant problems.
Our norther regions is another world...

Most likely- Coating to an inch of sleet and snow, some freezing rain ending as rain.  Temps warm enough to not make it a HARD shopping day Saturday.
Snow/sleet quickly to ice ending as rain.

Possible: Snow/Sleet 1-2 inches- Freezing rain dominates and temps don't get above freezing until after the system clears later Saturday.

Not totally written off yet: Snow/Sleet of 2 or more inches that ends as freezing rain. Temps remain colder and much of the day would be well spent at home, off the roads.

I'd venture to say pretty good chance we get a winter weather advisory Friday night into Saturday AM.

Depending on timing, another glancing blow of ice and snow possible Monday as the cold air rushes back in.

Big Warm up Christmas Week! Winter makes its return Middle of January??

Get your winter coats ready-- COLD is coming!

:) 

Significant pattern change underway.  From Today- December 3 till December 20th, Temps should run 3-5 degrees below normal on average.  The coldest days- may be 10-15 degrees below normal, a day or two that doesn't get above freezing several days that have highs not reaching 40f. 

Snow? 

I think we get in the books with something (Ice, snow) before this cold snaps looks to break near December 20th. The Mountains to our west will get several upslope snows before that. 2 windows -- Dec 11-14 and 16 to 19 look interesting at this point. 

Will update as needed. 

Late Winter Outlook

 I was wating on a few more outlooks that would clarify some concerns I had about mine and one has still not been issues. But, Winter is here so I must blog.

There were two schools of thought:
1. La Nina after strong El Nino--- cold front half of winter, warmer later:
2. Warm early, colder later.


The bottom line is December looks cold so option 1 seems more likely.

Simple Thoughts: Slighting below normal temps, coldest month in December.
Snowfall- LYH 13-18 inches, ROA 16-21, Blacksburg, 18-23, Danville 6-11

Concerns: Very dry to our south. Meaning, if it's cold but it does not precipitate--it can't snow.

Concern 2: Storm pattern: Even with our 2 BIG storms that got most places near to slightly above normal, we had ice mixed in both events.  December makes it even more challenging to get " all snow" events here.  When 1 decent storm really makes or brakes a forecast, that's always a cause for concern.

General ideas:
Thanksgiving to New Years averages cold with a few snow/ice storms likely.
Early January pattern changes and we have more change.
If the La Nina mainains, often it means a late spring with more shots of snow in March.

Some General examples of post strong el nino into La Nina winters:
2010-11-3 snows in December, snowed Christmas Day.  Not much after that. (Blown event late January)
98-99 The cold was centered west, but we had a BIG ice storm Christmas even and New Years Eve AND first week of January.
83-84- Mega cold outbreak Near Christmas. Most of the area was below zero Christmas Morning.
1966-67 Snowy December. 6-12 inches of snow December 23-24th.

Legit strong cold front comes in this weekend. Upslope snows start -- some flurries may reach into the Piedmont areas (Lynchburg)  I think we will be tracking our first snow/ice event within a month or less (Not really a bold call on November 16th)


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Winter Storm Warning has been issued..

I like the folks at the NWS over in Blacksburg. I'm not sure how we went from nothing, (under a inch or half inch, to a warning for 3-5 inches in these counties.. Patrick, Bedford, Franklin, Campbell, Appomattox and Charlotte.

Totals are 2-4 in the Blue and 3-5 in the warned area. 

The threat has always been there.. I mentioned yesterday how this COULD become a 3-6 or 4-8 inch event. With that, I'm not TOTALLY sold on a 3-5 warning event in those locals, but then again some places could end up with higher totals. So, bold call upgrading to a warning that fast, but the notice is short. And, there could be some issues still.  So, yeah.. they could verify but this doesn't mean it was the right way to do this.

Where are the models?

Most model data has a general 1-3 over most of the region. A few high res models have a 1-3 inches band west of LYH, a dryer slot near LYH and then 2-6 just east and south of town.

The GFS has been the lead model bring the snow in faster, colder and bringing the wrap around moisture in fastest. New Version Para totals:

Very broad area of 4-6 inches from 460 south to the NC border. 

My call:

Call me whiskers because maybe I'm a worrier. My gut says stay at 1-3, with up to 5 east of the Blue Ridge. With that, My official call:

2-4 inches region wide. Up to 6 possible in about the same places as the warned area. 

IF the Band that forms from the coastal slides west any more, 6-8 possible in the Danville/Lynchburg/ Appomattox corridor.  The 6z GFS is really close to this..

**not all the data supports 2-4, so this is a HIGH BUST potential. Looking at Radar, the snowiest models get the snow in here sooner and radar tends to support that. Schools may end calling it sooner too today, especially out west. Temps got a little cooler than modeled and cloud cover should be racing in**

Timeline: Snow may start in the Highlands and NRV by early mid afternoon and spread east by 5 to 7 PM. Heaviest snows out west will be before 2 am and Eastern areas between midnight and 7PM. Some rain will mix early on areas below 1500 feet and then along the NC Border till late evening. Snow ends 3-5 West regions, 5-10 east regions tomorrow morning. 

**if this busts- wave one slides to our north along 64. A few short term models show this. Wave two from the coastal doesn't make it that far west** 25% chance something like this happens and most places see under 2 inches. 

This is a day for frequent twitter and FB updates. Twitter: LynchburgWx, Facebook Keith David Huffman (would need to add me I think) and VirginiaWx FB page. Keep up the clicks on the ads if you like the efforts and forecasts. Share this for me!