Tuesday January 10th, 2012

Greetings and welcome!

5:30pm

I looked at the latest models and they are in a little better agreement on the storm scenario. They are on board with the southern storm feeding the clipper into a decent sized storm over lower Michigan. Some models show it wobling around over the lower UP a little before blowing off to the east. That little impossible to predict victory lap is the difference between 3-6 and 4-8 or even 6-9 for us.

About the only element that is pretty sure right now is a big north wind and prime conditions bringing lake effect snow to the blessed areas.

The whole storm is a little non-typical, I will be interested in seeing the next couple of model runs before I get too invested in a forecast. It certainly bears watching.

RJB

 

 

I apologize for missing my update yesterday. I woke up late and it was almost 40 degrees out, so I decided on a sunset report and taking advantage of a rare 45 degree January day by tacking outside work. I think that I probably got a good day in, I came back in and fell asleep immediately after dinner.

We aren’t going to do that today, I am expecting another really full 45 degree day outside, but with an early start I am tackling this and several other projects  while the day warms up from our overnight low of 18.

Yesterday the GFS and the HPC were onto an idea that a clipper storm would join forces with a southern storm over our region. After strengthening the clipper, the southern storm headed off to the east and left the clipper spinning over us in the eddy. In that scenario we would have seen what would be conservatively called a 6-9″ snowfall.

Today’s outlook is significantly less exciting, and now we are looking at snow showers on the low end and as much as 3-6 on the high end, with the low end of that looking more probable.

The warm weather will be put to an end tomorrow when that clipper moves in and brings colder air with it. We could see a little rain before it switches over, and then some snow Wednesday night and Thursday. Behind that is more seasonal temperatures.

For a week or so after the clipper the GFS leaves us without much to get excited about, but the second week looks pretty active. Hopefully that is the pattern change that we have been looking for.

In a more normal winter we have a big area of high pressure out over the Atlantic that at times blocks the northern and southern jet streams. As these jet streams crinkle, they push southern storms north, and clipper storms south, and hopefully they meet about right over us.

Without that blocking high pressure southern storms are going off to the east through the mid-Atlantic states, and the clippers are mostly staying north of us as the west to east jet streams remain unmoved for the most part.

I have been watching and hoping for a mid-month pattern change. By my observation, patterns often last about 6 weeks. Prior to the end of November we were in a pretty cold setup, and it has been about 6 weeks. Hopefully that means more of a blocking pattern out over the Atlantic and some snow for us, but that remains to be seen.

As far as weekend riding, that remains a function of the clipper’s evolution. Under the bigger snow scenario we would have a nice blanket of snow in place by the weekend. Marginal areas would be nice, and areas like here that have melted pretty far down would have a start and again be marginal or better.

The clipper will bring a cold north wind and at least give the lake effect areas of the UP and Vilas Co a dose of snow from the cold winds across the big lake. If the earlier scenario with the clipper strengthening occurred they would get really slammed, but even the milder scenario looks good for those areas. That is probably the hot ticket for riding this weekend unless we get pleasantly surprised.

Well I am off to tackle some outside stuff while it is 45 and sunny today. Have a good Tuesday and thank you for visiting!

RJB