Greetings and welcome!
Well it looks like crunch time. It is supposed to snow as much as 2-4 a hundred miles or so south of here tonight and tomorrow, and we could get a little of the far edges here.
My attention is fixated on next week. About midweek the models are showing a storm coming on a very favorable path for lots of snow. It is a classic southern storm, with decent moisture, a strong low (980), and in this case, plenty of cold air to mix in.
The QPF on the storm is in the 0.5″ to 0.75″ range. Unusually I use a 10:1 or 12:1 to estimate totals. In this case, the storm looks like upper air temps will be cooler than usual, and the snow could be puffier.
There is a pretty tight pressure gradient being shown. We know that when the isobars are tightly nested, we can expect a lot of wind. Combined with puffy snow, we could see some blowing and drifting, and some wicked conditions.
After 10 years of doing this, I am aware of how excited people get about the first big storm of the year. Count me in. I am going to spend the day madly working on snowmobiles and plow trucks to try to get at least one of each ready for the big event.
I am also tempered in my enthusiasm. We have had this storm on the models for a while. Well advertised storms often fail to live up to the hype. This morning the GFS and NAM are in pretty solid agreement that we will get spanked. That is of concern too.
I am going to spend the day getting ready for it, but I am skeptical.
In the longer term, we are starting to see more cold water in Nino 1 than warm. Other than the other regions being warmer, we could creep back toward an October scenario. That would be delightful. Think below normal temps and 5″ of precip, hopefully mostly snow. That one is still playing out and yet to be determined, but a guy can hopewishdream.
Well, I am off to go play with winter stuff. Have a good Sunday and thank you for visiting!
RJB