Saturday, October 20, 2012

Signs Pointing To Snowy Weather Soon

I am seeing several signs pointing to the emergence of what will deliver us into winter coming soon. Let's get right into it.

This is the projected snow depth for about 180 hours away. As you can see, there is a wide swath of snow cover over the Plains and Midwest. While this is in the GFS 'fantasy land' (forecasts that will most likely not verify are over 120 hours out), one can take away a few things from this forecast.

The mere presence of snow in the forecast is reason to jump for joy. Forecasters can look at long range forecasts and take away general hints from the forecasts, not exact events like a snowstorm. What I take  from this is that winter is edging ever closer. The more snow shows up in the long range forecasts, the higher the chance is that some areas will actually see snow when the time comes around.

Also, this new ensemble 500mb height anomaly forecast for about 10-12 days out shows a stormy pattern over the East US. When you get that storm signature in the East and a strong ridge of high pressure over Greenland, instances of cold and snow in the winter are much more likely than at other times during the winter.

Read more on the Greenland Block in yesterday's Long Range Lookout.

There are some more things I would like to monitor through October to get a better handle on, therefore those reasons will not be revealed until early November.

I'm getting a very good feeling for the Central and East US this winter.

Andrew

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

As long as Kansas,city gets some good snow ill be happy

Unknown said...

I hope Denver does very well this winter!
What are you thinking??

Anonymous said...

This may not happen,but it is very interesting to look athttp://www.instantweathermaps.com/GFS-php/showmap-conussfc.php?run=2012102018&time=INSTANT&var=PTYPE&hour=204.

Anonymous said...

I find any scenario remotely similar to this highly unlikely. I don't think central Missouri has ever received, or will receive 3-6 inches of snow in late October. I do realize that things like Snowtober are possible, but I just think that this scenario very unlikely.

wiiluigi1998 said...

On Accuweather, they are actually forecasting the first snow for my location ( Southern New Jersey ) to happen on Nov 1, HORRAY!

Andrew said...

Nicholas: I have not dug into Denver neutral winters yet, so I cannot confidently say just yet.

Anonymous #2: I'm saying that things like this are showing that snow may come soon. I am not saying that this is an actual valid forecast, I specifically stated this was a fantasy forecast.

wiiluigi1998: Unfortunately, that is quite long range and will most likely not happen.