Sunday, November 5, 2017

Snowstorm Next Weekend?

The NWS discussion alerts to the possibility of snow potential next week. Rather than put words in their mouth, we'll let their words speak for themselves:

Model consistency is still rather poor for next weekend`s storm potential. However, the pattern remains favorable for a trough translating across the northern Rockies, spawning an elongated
area of low pressure over the Plains as strong surface ridging remains on the east coast. Meridional flow in advance of the shallow trough would bring increasing moisture and lift, generating widespread precipitation along the leading edge of the trough. This would be more of an inverted trough snow with a nebulous low pressure center and moderate accumulations, unless the surface cyclone deepens and becomes negatively tilted. If that occurs, a focused area of heavier snow would form on the northern side of the cyclone with significant accumulations. It`s a sensitive pattern with a lot of subtle features coming together which is not as easily predicted as a classic long wave deep trough spawning a single significant cyclone over the southern Plains. Thus, model inconsistency will likely continue for the next day or two with the storm disappearing and reappearing in various models/model runs.