Partially Fizzled Friday Flakes; Next System Midweek, Next Week
December 4th, 2009 at 12:48 pm by Don Paul under Weather Watch 4
As of this writing, poorly organized lake snow is located where high res models predicted (far nrn Erie, srn Niag, SW Orl & NW Gen Cos), but a lowering cap/inversion, some shear, and thin moisture have combined to keep the band from really getting its act together. It may get a brief burst of life again early this evening in its current location, and then shift south, falling apart as it does so, late this evening.
The next system to watch will be around Wednesday, when major cyclogenesis is indicated in virtually all models. While track is still uncertain, most models point to WNY getting into the warm side of the storm during the day, with a gusty southerly flow developing. But as the storm explosively deepens, there is some potential for a High Wind (or at least strong winds) setup by early Wed evening into Thursday. Strong cold advection will be likely, and lake effect snow (depending on how much shear occurs) will set up. The location of this LES is not really predictable at this range.
Great link, Brian…now that’s what I call “full fetch”!…
Wow, those pictures are incredible. I would imagine that’s how it begins to look in the very early stages of a coming ice age.
by the way, it seems the GFS has been coming out with some really odd solutions lately. Check out the 0z solution for the 360 hour. What the heck kind of scenerio is this? I don’t believe it for a second, but I just had to share it for it’s oddness. Check this out:
http://www.nco.ncep.noaa.gov/pmb/nwprod/analysis/namer/gfs/00/images/gfs_pcp_360m.gif
well goodnight
oh and thanks storm watcher, if you click on october 12 to 13 under that photo it takes you to a whole story about the storm
Can you say, ‘blizzard like conditions’ at times Wednesday night into Thursday night? I can.
Yeah I also noticed the NWS has really lowered accums across the CWA for this storm. Looks now like less than 2″ Tues night changing to mixed precip then rain Wed and back to snow Wed night. As previously mentioned, they are forecasting the lake effect for a good part of wed night and thus to be cellular instead of on solid band, limiting accums during that time. It does say “blizzard conditions” during that time, but don’t expect much accumulating snowfall during that period. All according to the NWS text at 6:44am. Sorry guys.
Sounds like we may not get rain or as much, because as shown here it now shows snow/ sleet, rather than rain http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?CityName=Lancaster&state=NY&site=BUF&textField1=42.9016&textField2=-78.6698 for wednesday however as you get more south it shows rain and sleet, which leads me to believe this storm will take a path south of buffalo and one that is very close or over the southern tier http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=42.052351854553045&lon=-79.134521484375&site=buf&smap=1&marine=0&unit=0&lg=en
Anyone think we’ll see some lake enhancement with this system marching in today?
When Yukon Jack says blizzard conditions at times it makes things look pretty exciting for wed night into thursday morning. Let’s hope the cells are numerous and really close together!
Like I said yesterday, look for the Skyway closing, and possibly even the Thruway from Buffalo to as far east as the Henrietta exit IF the band sets up on that WSW wind for a long enough time, and IF it is able to organize enough despite shredding. It’s going to be so windy in the wake of the storm that I don’t see how even just a few inches won’t make conditions down right severe for a time. It’s happened before in setups very similar to what might come to fruition.
I agree Juju. I’ve never known Yukon Jack to be an alarmist or a cherry picker. Hearing the words “blizzard conditions” comming from him should be enough to excite anyone on this blog. Same thing obviously for z and Don. Though I get the feeling from various forecasts that we won’t be getting the kind of snow we or I would like from this system. I hope I’m wrong.
One thing that is good for me, the winds will be blowing what ever snow falls in the drainage gully where the run is on the luge. Snow has a way of collecting between the two rows of trees in windy conditions. So I may end up with a lot of drifting snow.
Areas out West, such as Colorado, are expecting some serious snowfall accumulations from this storm (5-6 feet), too bad we won’t be on its cold side the entire time, but I bet we’ll still feel quite an impact. Time will tell how much snow we’ll see out of this (looks like the LES will be confined to the Srn. Tier this time around)…
http://www.hpc.ncep.noaa.gov/lowtracks/lowtrack_ensembles.gif
Low track ensemble again.. but check out the plot points to the East for 12/09 12z and 12/10 0z…
I don’t know how many are familiar with the NAM (North American Mesoscale), since I don’t see it referred to much on here, but the NAM is a good model to watch at this time frame:
http://www.nco.ncep.noaa.gov/pmb/nwprod/analysis/
I can’t read the NAM that well, but I will say that when I wrote that post this am, I took a look at the link that Sabresfan posted and I did not see those 2 lows off the coast. Couls it be that the first low may transfer energy, giving us better chance for snow?
Yikes! Me trying to decipher the NAM is like a 5 year-old trying to read a column by George F. Will.
eh, I wouldn’t count on that secondary low to change things too much. I was more interested in it a couple days ago. Ultimately, the low to our west is probably going to remain the monster.
Ok, real confused. Why has Supermicrocast for the past few runs been painting the snow shield from Buffalo north, but the radar echo’s are all south right now? I thoght this shortwave today was to be light, looks like some good snows around PA border. Just an observation….
Sledhill, as with every system, I am, and I’m almost sure you are also, anxiously awaiting its arrival. Any pro-snow or severe wx tidbits the pros like YJ can give us is great.
Dave, you tee’d up a nice cherry for me to pick and don’t mind if I do! Here goes, the NAM towards the end of its range has the low still slightly to our northwest, which IF that comes true would keep a wsw flow through later Thursday.
Don, I know I put myself on the chopping block.
Maybe a little cherry picking, juju…but in your defense, we’re not talking about a model run for something that’s 10 days out. The storm will be at our doorstep at hour 48. With the storm this near, it only makes sense to start to look at each run for any shifts in the track and strength. That’s not to say you run with it, but it holds a alot more water at this close proximity. Even the NWS forecast discussions reference the GFS, NAM and ECMWF models on specific zulu runs.
ayuud -
Buffalo misses out on LES most of the time, that’s why many of the Ski resorts are located well to the south, the rise in elevation I’m sure helps to intensify the LES, so they don’t need the entire fetch of the lake to have intense LES events. Buffalo gets hit pretty hard because Lake Erie is pointed like a gun right at Buffalo, so when we get the entire fetch, the LES is impressive. Winds tend to be out of the W/WNW over the winter, that keeps the bulk of the LES to our South. The snowfall averages in the favored snow belts of the southern tier are generally 2-3 orders of magnitude greater than that of the Buffalo metro…
Buffalo does not miss out on LES so much as snow freaks here have been posting. In fact that’s plain silly. We average more than 90″ a season and in the average season about 2/3 of that is LES. Buffalo is, by far, the snowiest city with over 250,000 pop in the country. Ayuud, I killed your one-liner because it was absolute nonsense. I’ll be back on here after I’ve done some more work.
ok sorry, hows the next LES looking?
How awesome is it to live in a little nook of the country where, even after the huge storm that makes news headlines is long gone, it keeps on snowing…and snowing. Sure, we may miss some whopper snowstorms to the east and west, but think about it, when all is tallied, this area still winds up with far more snow than most everybody else. Considering the official snow recording site is at the airport, I think it’s fair to say that Buffalo certainly doesn’t miss out on lake effect snow!
NEW THREAD IS UP.
You should really think about how you effect peoples businesses when you dramatize the weather report and scare people into staying home. Isn’t the economy bad enough with out all you weather folks continuing to exagerate the reports because you are bored.