Today was yet another day with a high near 60 though not quite as warm as the past couple days. My high was 58 today. Though majority of the day was dry, some showers did come through about 3pm-ish or so and lasted a for a little while. Enough for me to pick up 0.25" worth of rain for the day so far. The pics you were taken this evening.
As far as this weeks weather goes, it appears that showers at times will continue through the work week with conditions turning cooler by end of the week. And this appears to be systems/ cold front dropping down from the north while a nearly cut-off low gets positioned off the WA coast and sends more bands of showers into Western WA. Could be a bit breezy as isobars look a bit compact together. And the mountains may very well see some snow as 850mb temps cool to about -7c by late this week. So should be chilly with snow at times in the Cascades/ Olympics. The 18z surface map shown, shows the possible cooler conditions for the time frame mentioned.
Andy,
ReplyDeleteI hear from Cliff's blog and from local forecasters who are starting to mention maybe a little bit of something (they really aren't going into details about snow ever since that big screw up that everyone got mad at them over). I was wondering what you thought?
Minor snow accumulation? Medium? Or a possibility, depending on the convergence zone, major?
Hope to see you do a blog on this. :)
Thanks.
EDIT: I realized I didn't even ask you anything. I was so caught up talking about the local forecasters.
ReplyDeleteWhat I meant to ask you, was what you thought about the snow chances/possibilities for Thursday morning, mainly?
Sorry about that! :)
Andy
ReplyDeleteAssuming we get the bit of snow they are now talking about you deserve some kudos, I believe. Everyone was telling you to take the long range forecasts with a grain of salt. Hmmm, maybe we should consider them a bit more before shooting them down altogether?
I haven noticed this happen on numerous occasions where a week out they predict some kind of weather event (i.e. snow), back off that prediction 4 or 5 days in advance, then jump on it when the time is much closer to the event. I can see why now how that happens--the models really can flip flop on their predictions. By no means do I think we'll have a repeat of December but I think it'll be interesting to see what indeed happens.
The dprog/dt feature of the mesoscale model output is invaluable when assessing the probability of an event. Why not use it for Thursday? Look at the change with time in the solutions--paying particular attention to how cool the air mass is forecast to be, the amount of onshore flow, precipitation etc. You have to use the tools!
ReplyDeleteTHANKS MIKE OF MLT!
ReplyDeleteHere is what I found (keeping in mind that I am off work today, and weather is not something that I look at very closely on my days off. I looked at the 12z extension, walked through the whole loop, and Thursday morning looked interesting. I then looped dprog/dt valid for 15-18z and found wildly disparate solutions. The pattern obviously is interesting, but it is a little late in the year to expect decent modified arctic fronts--and I'd rather have a PSCZ in an air mass cold enough for snow, but I'll take what I get. Anyway, the snowfall forecast does have snow in the area, more down in the city, could be a little overrunning across the cold air boundary, did not look like a pscz, but I spent all of two minutes looking. For 11 solutions, only one had snow--but that was the most recent, so that is something. I did not look at other times and earlier solutions for other times, I just aimed for the best time. I could examine this for an hour and give you a good guess, but my coworkers did that today and I haven't the time today. Flash card time for my kid who is behind on her multiplication table!!!
ReplyDeleteFirst off: Hi guys...and thank you all for posting on here and hope you all continue to keep posting on my blog.
ReplyDeleteYeah, some of those 'anon'(sheesh!) were really shooting me down. Think they were looking for attention.
Hey Mike of MLT...what do you mean by the 'dprog/dt' on the UW maps?
Now to Brians question... I to saw the snow on the 12zGFS and have actually thought about doing a post for it, but may wait till later tonight or tomorrow to see what the 00zWRF shows, and then do a post about it. But will certainly be checking it out tonight and tomorrow.
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As for the possibility, and given the cold air that is shown to drop down over us(not true arctic air) but cold enough to support snow, would say there is a small chance of it happening since this is the first run it`s shown up in such a short time frame.
In fact, both the 00zNAM and 18zGFS show a 1000mb/ 516m or a 500mb 528dm area of low pressure dropping SW out of southern B.C and out over the WA coast with 850mb temps around -9, -10c near it`s center core. And the low looks to move inland over Oregon for 12z Thursday(pre-dawn) with main action over Western Oregon. But if any snow dose occur, it will be spotty as the low will be spinning bands of moisture around it`s self some of which may end up in the central sound. And the SIM-RAD(simulated radar) on the 00zNAM shows just that. Scattered activity. So we will have to see how things go.
http://www.nco.ncep.noaa.gov/pmb/nwprod/analysis/namer//nam/00/nam_slp024042_m.shtml
http://www.nco.ncep.noaa.gov/pmb/nwprod/analysis/namer//gfs/18/gfs_slp024042_m.shtml
Hi Joseph. Yeah I agree with you, I really doubt the snow wont be sticking around. Mabe for few hours Thurs morning and then it`s gone with warm up and 925mb temps going up to like +5c or there abouts. So certainly a very short lived 'event'. Though 'event' may not be the word to be used here. But it`ll be quick though.
ReplyDeleteIt will be at the top of the page when you look at the UW mesoscale output and is in
ReplyDeleteblue and looks like this
Loop all forecasts valid at yyyymmddtt
D(model)/D(t)
You don't have to fill anything in, just
click on it, and you get all the previous
solutions for that valid time, nifty.
Keep in mind that timing differences may
account for some of the flip flop, but
it is still useful.