Monday December 24th, 2018

Greetings and Merry Christmas!

We had some snow showers yesterday afternoon and into last night. It was light puffy snow that added up to 1/4-1/2″. It was enough to get the roads slick and cover everything with a blanket of white. It was pretty windy last night so some spots got blown bare, but for the most part there is a puffy blanket of light snow this morning.

You guys are really going to like what I have to tell you this morning. As expected I have been scrubbing the forecast models and predictions for the Wednesday-Friday storm.

The standard disclaimer- It is still 3-4 days out. This is my best guess right now.

Anyway, the storm is still on track, and the guidance that I saw had it on a pretty favorable path for big snow in our area. One model has it all snow, one switches back and forth between snow and rain. We won’t know that answer for sure for four more days.

Nonetheless my guidance is showing a significant precipitation event. Here is graphic that I made showing the GFS 6 day precipitation total in rainfall equivalent. Depending on how much rain mixes in I use a 4-12″ per inch of rain multiplier.

No I don’t believe that we could see 2-3 feet of snow. What I do see is a significant precip event. Assuming that the rain/snow line is just a little north of the heaviest precip bands it looks like we are in pretty good shape for the storm path being favorable for snow in our area. A 6-12″ snow looks like a very reasonable guess right now.

I know, I know.. it is the first real storm of the season and I am a little excitable and a little gullible.

That isn’t the only thing that I saw on the 16 day GFS model that has me excitable. The model has been showing a storm around New Years pretty consistently. This morning it is showing that storm as a very strong storm for New Years day. It looks stronger that our late week storm. It is 8 days out so it is just a nice cartoon, but I like what it says. There are also several clippers and small storms after the 1st that could keep the snow coming.

With a couple of big storms and 3 or 4 small ones in the 16 day forecast Santa apparently knew what I wanted to see on Christmas Eve morning and how to start my day with a smile. He didn’t show up with my new Ski-Doo yet but there is still time. I just hope it isn’t a 1:16 scale model again..

The sun is up now so I am going to go and tackle some outside work and storm prep. Best wishes to you and yours for a happy and healthy Christmas.

RJB

Christmas tree GIF courtesy of..  Free Christmas Clipart