Coming up next Wednesday, we’ve got quite a monster of a storm coming up to get us. This looks to be a Nor’ Easter on land. Unlike most Nor’ Easters, this one will be inland (maybe a  little too far) to actually get some excellent snows for CNY.

Lets start off with the uncertainties. Forecasting almost a week in advance, a lot can go wrong. The good news is the ensembles have an excellent agreement on this storm, the only difference being arrival time, and length. Also, this storm can track all of 200 miles either direction. If it goes west, flooding problems; east, wonderful accumulations of snow.

Now, how fast will this thing be coming? Well, at 8pm Tuesday, this will still be in North Carolina. 12 hours later, it will be on the line of longitude somewhere in southern NY state. This things going to fly, and that means we’re going to need some hefty snows to get big accumulations.

I’ll have more to post Monday, when we get into the time period where there are more models available, olong with more products (such as snowfall maps). Right now the ECMWF and GFS are the models to watch for the storm.

See you then! (With graphics!)

For this post, we’ve got a rather dull title. I’d use the word tranquil, but I feel it is now an overused word .

For this week you can expect off and on flurries. I hate temperatures so I won’t even get into them, although lows should be scattered all across the board. If you have clouds, you’ll be fine. If not, you’’ll be sorry.

The next storm we’re looking at is for next Monday into Tuesday. While it’s waaay to far away to be getting into any sort of details, I’m expecting this one to be snow. If you’re a model hunter, you’ll think that this will be a south-runner. Well, any analytical folk will know that the models have had a terrible south bias this winter.

That’s all for now…

The clipper is ready to swing into CNY here anytime. The front as of last check was between Syracuse and Rochester, and temperatures are dropping behind it.

Once we get the front through, you can expect some limited lake effect off the southeast portion of the lake, mainly in Oswego county. In that band, expect a general 2-5”.

While that’s going on, you can expect the temperatures to be cold. Tomorrow morning you can expect temperatures between 10 and –10 areawide. Of course, with temperatures colder north and warmer south. However, the wind will be at a stiff 15-25mph. That means that windchills will be anywhere from –10 to –28. Now, that is what I call cold. Depending on your exact windchill, you can expect frostbite in about 30 minutes.

However, that will be nothing compared to later this week, where temperatures will get to –15! With as little as a 5mph wind, you can expect windchills to be at –28 with that! Tracking off of weather here for a minute, if you go to Syracuse City Schools, that meets the criteria to close . Back onto weather, winds look to be in between 5 and 10 mph. At –15, that means it can get as cold as –35! If you’re going to be out doing anything, I recommend you bundle up.

Now, you may be wondering where I got the hot water aspect of the title. Well, if you throw a pot of boiling water into air below 25 degrees, it will turn into snow while it’s in the air. While it doesn’t look like we’re going to be that cold, I thought I’d put it out there, in case you do get below –25. Now you may be saying, What about the windchills, Mike?. Well, windchills only have an effect on living organisms. That is because you have sweat and other moister laden products on your skin, which evaporate. Get a wind, it evaporates faster, the colder you feel.

You guys may have read my post earlier this morning about how great Bufkit looked for oncoming lake effect. Well, truth be told, that post was written 12 hours before, and was just sitting in the printing press ready to be released. Why didn’t I release it? Well, I didn’t want to have two posts in one day!

Many changes have occurred since I analyzed the data yesterday. Low level shear looks to be a terror, along with low humidity levels, it’s actually going to be a wee bit difficult to get lake effect going.

As many of you now know, a clipper will be moving through Tuesday afternoon. This is along a cold front, which is the leading edge to colder air. Generally that is a term many meteorologists use all the time, and I’m sure many of you don’t pay much attention to that afterthought. However, this front will bring in much cooler air. We’re talking single digit’s compared to 20’s! Along with this, there will be gusty winds, causing a lot of blowing and drifting snow.

However, this is only going to last under an hour for most people. That’s good news for the non-snow lovers. With that in mind, I’m going to say a general 1-4” is expected regionwide, with maybe a few 3-6” locations.

After that, lake effect will start up. Remember in the beginning when I mentioned that the conditions aren’t all that favorable anymore? Well, that’s going to really hinder the development of this lake effect band. On top of it’s already hindered outcome, it’s going to be a mover, so a lot of people can expect snow. It’s going to start off up north by Watertown, then work its way down through the Tug Hill, Oswego county, and go on a bee-line for Syracuse. It will hang out there for most the night. I’m not going to post Totals until tomorrows update, but don’t expect too much, and don’t expect a dusting either.

After that, we’ve got another clipper to work with. This one looks to be more of a nuisance, and shouldn’t bring too much with it, other than brutal coldness! Expect lows to be in the negative teens areawide with negative twenties in the North Country. I’ll have more on this as we get nearer.

Welcome to the second full week of January! Remember that January thaw everybody talks about? Well, not right now. We’re going to be experiencing the coldest temperatures this season, we’re talking minus double-digits! And of course when we get air that cold going over the lakes, someone’s going to get hammered with lake effect.

I’m going to break down the formula for lake effect little by little. There won’t be any particular order to it, just as it comes across for me to look at.

Cold Air: One thing we don’t have to worry about! It’s going to be plenty cold enough for lake effect.

Good Wind Direction: We seem to be good in this department. We’ll be having a WNW wind. This is great for metropolises such as Oswego, Mexico, and Camden; also known as the lake effect built. One thing that will be hindering totals, the band will be on the move as the band is expected to make some swings to a straight Westerly type.

Little Shear: There are two types of shear, vertical and horizontal. Vertical is when we have winds going in all sorts of different directions as we make our trip up the atmosphere. This will cause the precipitation to be suspended in air, and not fall, or even be able to condensate allowing precip. This is usually marked by virga on the radar. The second type, horizontal, is when you have winds going different speeds up yander. This will cause the cells to race themselves, not being able to work with each other to get a good snowfall.

So as you can see, we’re doing very well in all the basic lake effect departments. So, what’s that supposed to mean? Well, that means I’m expecting a good snow for a number of people, especially seeming it will be moving around a bit. Also, this will last until Thursday when the band will move up to the St. Lawrence valley and die out, just as we get our second clipper as we discussed in the last post.

Now I’d like to take the time to introduce you to the tools of the trade. One of the most helpful tools we have when forecasting precip types and more importantly lake effect is called Bufkit. It’s developed by the National Weather Service forecast office in Buffalo.

Now please don’t shoot me, I’m giving all this data out way far in advance. It is subject to change, and I’ll be making a new post with my final call tomorrow, around 3pm.

The image to the right is the screen grab of BUFKIT for 8pm Tuesday. As you can see, it’s expected to be affecting primarily the Tug Hill. As you can see, we have a very wide temperature gap from the lake to the air. We’re on the way of 22 degrees at 850mb and 29 at 700mb. This is very good for lake effect, especially seeming you’re looking for a difference of 13 degrees Celsius in order to get LE.

Now we’ll move onto 1am Wednesday. As you can see, the band has moved south to a NW-SE manner. This looks to hit cities such as Fulton, Oswego, Syracuse, and others continuing on that line. I expect this to go inland to and a little bit into Madison county. As you can see, the difference in temperatures have increased even more, and BUFKIT even cared to mark these parameters as extreme! Furthermore, the horizontal shear looks to be good, along with vertical. Within this band I wouldn’t be suprised to see snowfall rates of 2”+ an hour! How long will this last? I don’t have the space to post the 1pm image here without making this look crowded, but it’s going to start a trend northward around 1pm. I’m going to go out on a limb (and again don’t get angry at me) and say that we’ll be getting snows around 6-15” of snow within that band. I’ll post a map with my Tuesday update.

This is all just preliminary stuff, so don’t hold me to within 1/10th of an inch of my predictions!

Sorry I haven’t posted in a while, I’ve been beta testing Windows 7, and am now using the blog writing interface within to write this. I like it!

If you’ve been paying attention to the GFS, you’ll notice that we have two Alberta clippers coming in for the end of this week. These will bring with them a cold front, and it means business.

The first storm system will be rolling through here mid-day Thursday. This system doesn’t look to be coming in with that much of a vengence, and it’ll be further weakened by a Nor’ Easter type system that’ll be riding up the coast. Our storm will transfer it’s energy over, leaving a dry slot over someone. Don’t expect much more than 1-4” inches out of this storm.

After that, on Thursday/Friday we’ll be having our second storm come in. Right now with it being so far away, we can’t really through out any real numbers, although I’m going to go out on a limb with 3-6” areawide.

Then our attention turns to lake effect. It’s way too early to be saying any numbers, or location. However, this looks to be some good snows for someone. If you want an interesting read about the situation, read the NWS Buffalo forecast discussion.

~Mike

As many of you know, tomorrow we’re expecting a clipper system here in central New York. Whenever I see one of these events on the horizon, I see “bust” written everywhere. The problem with these things is, you have to take every single thing into hand, or else that word will be your forecast.

First off, clippers are something different. We’ve all dealt with Lake Effect, where Oswego county and the Tug get hit. There’s also the Nor’ Easters, where the Adirondacks are the winners. Take note in what those locations have in common, they’re in the northern tier of CNY.
Clippers are another beast, however. Unlike the normal “the farther north you go, the more snow,” they have more snow the farther south you go. This holds true for almost no matter what. Otsego county will always get more than Boonville in these systems, unless they track through CNY.

There’s also the forecasting challenges within. These clippers are fast movers, and some even have precip. type to take into account. On top of that, they’re fast movers. These systems may produce snowfall rates fast enough to warrant the high totals, but it just doesn’t last.
To add to all that mess to take care of, there’s the model bias. Currently, the NAM has been waiting until the middle of the storm to bring things north, to have that verify. So, right now when I see one of these systems, I’m thinking that it’s going to go further north than the NAM has pegged. The GFS seems to handle these events well, but it’s hard to use its resolution to make a snowfall forecast.

Now, I haven’t really been looking at too much weather data this past week, but I’ll be sure to get back into the swing of things after the holidays.

I’m sure many of you have noticed that us here in CNY have gone into an active weather pattern for this past week, and it looks to continue.

So far we’re onto round #3, which is going to kick off tomorrow. I won’t go out and make any sort of a forecast right now, but I see heavy snowfall possible. Unlike this last storm, it will follow the normal rule of the farther north you go, the heavier it will be, at least for the main CNY region.

After the storm, lake effect is possible. As of right now, I haven’t looked at a single model run to see any wind profiles or anything, so I’m going to have to hold off on that for now.

Now for a look back on Friday’s storm. It did snow quite heavily for some time, impacting many people’s travel plans. Oddly, not that much snow fell. A total of 9″ fell here, which is actually mediocre for a storm.

I’ll have a snowfall forecast posted later this evening…

It seems as though the date of the first sighting of snow is something that is completely unpredictable. Every year we get a different date, and different types of snow.

Most years the date of the first snow is on or around the 15th. For our first snow we basically get some snow falling, and melting on contact. Sometimes we’ll get a coating, but it melts.

Right now it’s 42, down from 52 just 3 hours ago. It is reportedly snowing in Buffalo at 36. Do I think it’ll snow tonight/tomorrow morning? Yes, I do.

Now I’d like to open up a discussion on how hard y’all think this winter will be. According to both Farmers Almanacs it’s going to be a hard one. And in case you didn’t notice, this years crops were huge. From most people I’ve talked to, that’s a sure sign of a hard winter.

Now, a hard winter would be a turn-around of the trend. For that last who-knows-howmany years we’ve been getting lighter and lighter winters, with them actually starting later and later. And now the kids might have to deal with snow on Halloween.

Also available on Mike’s WunderBlog, at WunderGround.Com