Saturday, December 7, 2013

Two to Four Inches is Most Popular Forecast for Sunday Snow

Don't look up. More snow's in the forecast.
Most forecasters were on board with a 2-4" snowfall forecast for Sunday. The exception was KSTP with 1-3". Here's a look at forecasts we picked up on Saturday morning.

WCCO: 2-4" (morning broadcast)
KSTP: 1-3" (KSTP weather blog)
KMSP: 2-4" (KMSP weather blog)
KARE: 2-4" (website video)
MPR: 1-3" (not clear on this forecast; also info from blog post at 5 p.m. Friday)
TWC: "light accumulations" per 60-second video (rather useless for our purposes)
NWS: 2-4". (No advisory posted, at least yet)
Strib: 2-4"

31 comments:

  1. Advisory will be coming with the afternoon update. Still looks like 3 to 5 inches of snow is looking likely, more south and east of the Twin Cities. Regarding the post in the previous thread, and the lack of advisories, the NWS will hold off on advisories sometimes if the accumulations will be slow and drawn out. They have certain guidelines that need to be met for them to issue their headlines. The snow totals should certainly reach advisory criteria, but those accumulations usually need to happen within a a certain time frame (usually a 6 or 12 hour period). I certainly think the advisory will be needed though. We'll see a drawn out snow event on Sunday and the winds will remain mostly light but they will pick up a bit after the snow is done. Given this snow will be the kind you can easily brush off your vehicle, it will easily be blown around. This will be a nice little system to watch from the comfort of my couch and out my patio door window.

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    1. I agree. Tomorrow is going to be a stay indoors next to the warm cozy fireplace, put up the Christmas tree (yes, we're running a week behind this year), watch some snowy NFL games (Green Bay) and watch the snow pile up on our deck kind of day! A perfect winter Sunday! Let it snow!!!

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    2. Now that sounds like the perfect winter Sunday!

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  2. NWS Chanhassen has hoisted up the anticipated Winter Weather Advisory for tomorrow's snow event. Two to five inches.

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    1. Yep...I see the avisory.....its definitely warranted, snow with these cold conditions is going to make for very slick conditions, ice melting agents arent so productive at these temps.
      I guess we can take out the question are we going to have a white christmas this year, dont see temperatures rising above freezing the rest of the month and if it does it maybe for a day or two.

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  3. Regarding the previous thread, I think the NWS handled this advisory just about right, it looks to me like the Nam came into agreement with the other models with it's pearl harbor day run of 12z and cut its snowfall totals. When the models came into agreement the proper headlines were issued.

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  4. MPX launch is in. The column is already nicely saturated from the surface up to a about 3km with the exception of the very lowest layer, but it is close. There is a dry layer from there to about 6km, the sounding itself is just a bit to cold for a good dendrite growth zone but with slight warm air advection overnight we should see a good deep growth zone where temps are between -11 to -18° C. Where the column is between -11 to -18 is that growth zone would be and it looks very deep IMO. We are on track. If Duane or the Dr would comment please.

    http://www.spc.noaa.gov/exper/soundings/13120800_OBS/

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  5. Wow what a good Big Ten championship game

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  6. Did the weather channel name this storm?

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  7. Question for the smart people on this board: I heard a lot about QPF for this storm and how the colder temps make for "more snow." But my question is: does it really create more snow or does it create "fluffier" snow with more air in it that would otherwise compress into less snow? It's the amount of precipitation that's the key right?

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  8. The snow is extremely light in Burnsville and the flakes are very small. Is it supposed to intensify at all?

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    1. I don't know. I'm not really feeling very good about this snow. The radar shows that the overwhelming bulk of the snow is moving through Iowa northeast to Wisconsin and is basically going to clip extreme southern Minnesota south of Rochester. The snow is very light and the flakes are very small here in St. Paul too.

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  9. Yeah this smells like bust, an underachiever so to speak, it happens occasionally in the winter. Though I'm abit surprised because I thought Novak was all over this one with all his comments on the previous thread, I'm sure we'll hear things like too much dry air to overcome or the system traveled to far south.

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    1. No doubt about it, the storm has missed us. Rochester south is where the snow is and will remain. Very few radar echoes are even showing up north of Rochester.

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  10. The sun is breaking through in Rosemount. It is snowing ever so lightly. We have picked up about an inch of snow. A little disappointing. Down here in the southern burbs a lot of us were looking forward to a snowy Sunday with a fresh 3 or so inches of snow. Oh well. Perhaps soon there will be another system that isn't predicted to do much but surprises us by giving us a lot more snow than predicted.

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    1. @Schnee Meister....are u seeing the snow in your old stomping grounds of the Mid-Atlantic.....watching the Lions and Eagles in Philadelphia in blizzard like conditions on that field, even my brother in central NJ reporting heavy snow.

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    2. @ bigdaddy, you know I am!! My little sister texted me from Delaware and asked me what that strange white stuff is that is falling so heavily from the sky?!! lol I'm watching the Vikes/Ravens game at snowy Baltimore too. It looks like a lot of fun. The snow just started here in Rosemount again. It's steady but light. How are things up your way?

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    3. Light snow most of the day....we may ick out 2 inches.....unbelievable how the Vikings find new ways to lose a game.

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    4. We got about two inches down here....barely. Nothing like back East. What an exciting last two minutes of the Vikes' game, but you're right in that they always seem to find a way to lose. I'm glad my Eagles won in the midst of that "blizzard" though!

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  11. Although we were not expecting a big storm in MSP (1"-4" of snow in general from all outlets), I still consider this anemic snow maker a BUST. Quite frankly, I'm still surprised that we didn't reach the 2"+ total at MSP. There is nothing that I can see that would've prevented this. Obviously I missed something. This was one of those situations where I should have strictly went with the minimal QPF that most models were depicting. Meanwhile, the dry air & lack of significant forcing were certainly hard to overcome. Advisories were warranted, especially from RST on south, especially when you consider how road chemicals have such a tough time in these cold conditions.

    This is a bummer because we won't see another opportunity for widespread significant snow for at least a good 5 days, if not more.

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  12. Looks like the low end forecasts were the best this time. Just an inch or so, but man that's icy stuff out there!

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  13. 1.6 official number out of MSP for the Sunday snow. I guess MPR and KSTP take the award, most everyone else a tad too high, also NWS had 3-6 inch totals in their graphic less then 24 hours from said event, so the 2-4 you gave them was a little conservative, all in all not really a newsworthy event.

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  14. NWS missed it and to their credit acknowledged it in their yesterday's discussion:
    THE SNOW NEVER REALLY MATERIALIZED LIKE HOW WE ORIGINALLY THOUGHT IT WOULD YESTERDAY WHEN WE ISSUED THE WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY.
    IT HAS BEEN SNOWING STEADILY MOST OF THE DAY ACROSS MUCH OF THE FORECAST AREA...HOWEVER THE CRYSTALS ARE VERY FINE AND SNOW ACCUMULATION HAS BEEN DIFFICULT.

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    1. Nice catch of that info! Nice to see that type of commentary.

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    2. Yes good to see that acknowledgement, plain and simple it was a miss....but weather is not a perfect science and mother nature always throws curveballs at the last minute, case in point my brother in central NJ received 5-8 inches yesterday when the morning forcast was 1-3 inches.

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  15. Nobody seems to have noticed the supposedly irrelevant snow-maker last night produced 1.8 inches of snow (according to NWS -- which by the way seems a bit high to me so it ma be revised down) which is more than the 1.6 than the much more advertised Sunday storm yielded.
    So once again a confirmation that talking up storms just to make news is absolutely useless.

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    1. Regardless of how much actually fell last night, it seems generally comparable to what fell on Sunday. So, point well taken!

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  16. Is it starting to look like the rest of December will be void of any large storms and more based on cold!?

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    1. No way to know.
      Big storms appear and vanish from models all the time.
      If on December 26th no big storms will have occurred and nothing is in the models until the end of the year then you will be right.
      For now it is pure speculation.

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    2. It certainly wouldn't bother me. We've had more than enough rotten weather this month and the roads in the metro area need serious work.

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  17. Well, the well advertised cold blast is in full swing now and I'm already looking forward to it being spring again. Usually it takes me a bit to adjust to the colder temps before we see the big late January arctic blasts but this year left no time for adjustments. Thankfully we see some moderation in temperatures over the weekend and parts of next week but long range isn't looking too great at the moment. Yet another blast of cold(er?) air could very well be on the way again for the weekend before and week of Christmas. I just hope and pray that the models will start adjusting and keeping the coldest of the air off to our west or east so that maybe we can warm up. As for snow, nothing but moisture starved clippers and disturbances over the next 7 to 10 days. After that, ahead of the next potential arctic blast, models develop a strong storm system and bring it close to the area. That one we'll be keeping an eye on over the next week, as well as any potential signs of a longer lasting shift in the pattern that warms us up.

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