End of week snow chances... (12-13-11)
More of the same today (Tuesday) in central New York. More sun and temperatures well above normal (44F at the airport) and no snow. We’ve had days with a bit of snow so far but we are still waiting for our first day when an inch or more of snow has fallen. We are almost up to the latest into the season that has happened for the first time:Year | Date of First 1” Snowfall |
1998 | December 22nd |
1946 | December 15th |
2011 | December 13th |
NAM model 850 mb (5,000 ft) for 12/16/11 Courtesy National Centers for Enviromental PredictionTo be honest, though, we can’t get too excited about the chances for significant snow. I think part of that can be tied to drier air moving in during the day.One change we made for the weekend is to remove the chance for snow for Saturday but then put it in for Sunday. Here’s what’s going on. First, high pressure looks to build in quick enough Saturday to dry us out. The wrinkle comes from a jet stream disturbance that our computer models are now taking from central Canada toward central New York. This is farther south than the models (GFS, Canadian, and European) were showing yesterday. In reality, this system is acting much like an ‘Alberta Clipper’ system that is so common during the middle of winter.
I looked at our BUFKIT program to see what the GFS is forecasting for Sunday and it prints out .15” of liquid which would correspond close to an inch of snow given our forecasted temperatures in the upper 30s. Here is the print out from BUFKIT that we were looking at in the office this afternoon.
It’s a little hard to believe I’m getting this excited over the possibility on an inch of snow in the middle of December but that’s the way the season has gone so far.
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