Thursday, March 13, 2008

Some Fresh Snow



The models are still not in good agreement, but as I said in my post on Tuesday I think northern Ohio will see a few inches of snow, with some rain mixing in farther south. Now I mentioned the models...a lot of them are indicating a storm that will stay suppressed and farther south, and keep us dry, but I don't see that happening. Here is why:

1. A tight temp gradient, strong jst stream, and abondant moisture will cause the storm to become pretty potent...stronger storms move more to the north as storms bring warm air north from the equator...

2. No overwhelmingly strong high pressure north of the storm. Even if the storm is a bit weak, I see no high pressure to sufacate the storm and keep it to the south.

3. South East ridge...OK, it will be off the SE coast, but will bump the storm northward, especially since there is no strong high pressure north of the storm...

So, what does that all mean to us? Well, in northern Ohio, expect a period of light to moderate snow Saturday/Saturday night...it will not amount to anything huge, but 1-3" along the lake shore with 3-6" inland is a good estimate. But, in southern Ohio, the air will be too warm for an all snow event...south of a Youngstown-Canton-Mansfield line the precip will start as rain on Saturday, and end on snow Saturday evening, leaving 1-2" of snow for southern Ohio. Bottom line is this is not a huge storm, but the media and NWS are overlooking it a bit because over half the models are not giving Ohio much snow, but, for the reasons listed above, I think the smaller portion of models showing some snow for Ohio will be correct. Another update tomorrow...

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