AAAAaaaaaand they’re off! Here we go diving into season 24 of the Big Snow Page with a winter storm watch.
Welcome back everyone!
We have a pretty big storm coming in for roughly Tuesday night through Friday. As is always the case with the first big storm of the winter, folks are getting all excited. When I was looking at the forecast models last night I saw some pretty excited totals.. Here are a few examples of the more generous expected snowfall by the weekend..
European- 17″
GFS- 13″
UK MET – 10″
GFS- 14″
CFS- 12″
Our local NWS is being somewhat more restrained. There is a big question on how much of the storm will be rain vs snow (there always is on the big storms..). At this point with the winter storm watch they are just saying that we could see 8+ inches in some places.
There is a big slow moving storm headed our way from the plains. The models are in pretty good agreement that it will start Tuesday night into Wednesday morning as the first wave of precipitation pinwheels into the area. The storm is expected to start as rain/sleet/freezing rain/snow, and then change over to snow Wednesday afternoon or evening. They are showing that area of precipitation kind of camping over us for a day or more, and some really heavy waves of moisture coming this way later Wednesday and into Wednesday night when the precip will for sure be snow. With snow falling at an inch an hour or more in addition to winds gusting to 30-40+mph travel will be pretty close to impossible at times Wednesday night.
The low pressure area is then shown moving up the center of the state, and keeping a chance of snow in the forecast right into Friday.
With the rain/sleet/freezing rain/snow early in the storm and then heavy wet snow plus high winds Wednesday night there is a chance that the snow will accumulate on tree branches and take them down. That can get messy both with power outages and with causing a mess on the trails. We had that a few years ago and it really took a lot of volunteers and a few weeks to clear the trails afterward.
Naturally I’m a little skeptical. People get a little excited about the first big storm. There are also a few challenges that go along with a forecast and storm like this. How much of it will be rain and how much of it will be snow? Will the big heavy second wave really come on Wed/Wed night upping totals?
All that I’m sure of is that the forecast models are in really good agreement and have been for a couple of days. Unless something changes significantly in the next 24 hours we could be in for a pretty good storm.
I will keep you up to date.
RJB