Despite my confidence earlier today, tomorrow's forecast has, since this morning, actually gotten a lot more complicated and less certain rather than the other way around -- a definite departure from the norm.
The computer models that I, and the meteorological community at large, rely on are in significant disagreement about a number of different, important factors over the next 36 hours: the speed of the approaching area of low pressure; the amount of upslope flow (northwest winds as opposed to northeast winds can make a WORLD of difference when you're talking mountain topography); and the timing of events.
What I do think is that (accumulating) snow is looking quite a bit less likely (at least for the daylight hours) tomorrow than I believed this morning. And, at this time of year, the sun angle is comparatively high meaning that snow falling during the daylight hours, especially when air temperatures are above freezing, is unlikely to stick to most paved surfaces -- therefore likely to be low impact.
The big question now is whether (as temperatures cool during the second half of the day tomorrow following the passage of a cold front) there's enough moisture remaining that we see accumulating snow Wednesday night into Thursday morning. One model says no way; another says yes and 4+ inches possible. I haven't decided yet which way I think things will progress but gut feeling is now (sorry, snow-lovers) saying the former -- accumulating snow chances significantly diminishing.
I'll try for another update during the first half of the day tomorrow, when some wet snow flakes may very well be falling, but are unlikely to stick to anything other than elevated and/or grassy surfaces.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
0 comments:
Post a Comment