BLOG: Winter's Last Stand??

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Happy Sunday all,I am back from vacation and ready to talk warmth! But sadly....I have to talk about cold and snow. We are in the home stretch of March but it sure looks and feels like February today. Late-morning radar/satellite and temperatures tell the story: currentNationwide, it's very cold for a late-March day....with the exception of the Southwest and Deep South: tempsAside from the cold, the weather looks uneventful through Monday night across the region. On Tuesday, a strong Alberta Clipper-type system will cruise through the Ohio Valley on it's way to the East Coast. Here's the midday Tuesday map: NAMTUEYes, it will snow lightly at times on Tuesday, but given that it's going to be light, it's coming during the day, and it's late-March....I would not expect too many problems with this. Some coatings on non-paved surfaces look possible. Someone might even get an inch on their grass. This will be a bigger deal Tuesday into Tuesday night in the high elevations south and east of Pittsburgh: namsnowNotice another "bullseye" closer to the East Coast. This storm will rapidly strengthen offshore and may give coastal areas (especially in New England) a whopper of a wind and snow event. Yuck: CaptureEuropean model snow prediction is wicked for Boston and Cape Cod: ecmwf_tsnow_ne_18As for us, there are growing signs that this cold stretch (with some snow to boot) is likely to be Winter's Last Stand. Not to say it won't be cold at times in April...and we can even have the occasional snow. But this type of SUSTAINED cold, as much as 20 degrees below average at times, is not likely after the next few days. In other words, Spring is going to start winning a lot more of these battles.Relief comes late this week. Here's the current cold surge of air: eurotodayA re-enforcing shot Tuesday/Wednesday: eurowedThen...ahhhh, Thursday and Friday bring a pattern change: eurofriA brief cooldown is likely to be followed by a couple of days of mild weather as we exit March: euromonIs this a WARM pattern we are heading into??? No, I would not say that. I don't see a nice, long stretch of above-average temperatures coming anytime soon. What we are heading into is classic early Spring in Northeast Ohio: lots of back and forth, some mild days, some chilly days.....but probably not many EXTREMES on either end for a while. While it stinks that we likely won't see an early-season 80 anytime soon, after we get through the cold early this week we are likely to be done with days where the high does not get above freezing.I'll be back full force with social media postings, "Weather For Weather Geeks", and of course the TV forecast at 6&11 on Monday. See ya then!Eric

BLOG: Another Close Shave Sunday Night?

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The last couple of storms have avoided the Valley like the plague, spreading their heavier snows either north or south of the region. It seems like this has been an especially tricky Winter, with storms not "showing their hand" until the very last minute...leaving forecasters scratching their heads a bit.What about the next one? As I mentioned in my "Weather Geeks" video this afternoon, it seems likely to be a miss for us...*BUT* the last couple of storms seemed like they would produce more snow than they did, so will this one bring surprises too??As always, we will update the forecast over the weekend, so keep checking back. Here's the way it looks NOW:Low pressure will emerge from the Plains states and pick up some Gulf moisture as it heads east. By Sunday evening, it will be somewhere over the South. But where exactly? That's a very important question. The North American (NAM) model has it over eastern Tennessee, with high pressure over the western Great Lakes:nampressThe GFS (along with the European and Canadian) has a weaker storm, and farther south:gfspressThose models also have a stronger area of high pressure over the Lakes AND it is farther east. The location of that high will be very important. In that position, it will have more of a "blocking" effect....meaning the low will only make it so far to the north before it has to turn east. The NAM idea allows to the low to get farther north (and therefore, snow gets farther north).The result is a big difference in the snow prediction the NAM has vs. the other models.The NAM forecast: namsnowThat's a couple/few inches around Youngstown and a foot or so in SE Ohio and southern PA.THE GFS looks much different: gfssnowGiving the Valley nothing.The European: eurosnowNothing as well.The European Ensemble model odds of more than 1" of snow: PROBThat's less than 10% for most of NE Ohio/western PA, a bit higher odds south of 224.So, most of the current evidence suggests this storm is a miss for the Mahoning Valley. That said, as of Friday night, I am not ready to take it to the bank yet. I have seen too many last-minute "shenanigans" this Winter. Saturday should (hopefully) bring more certainty.-Eric

Wednesday's Winter Wallop

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We are 48 hours away from yet another wintry headache across the Valley. From a forecasting standpoint, this one is somewhat "easier" than the system that shifted south on us 8 days ago. The storm track with this one is not exactly "locked in" yet but we have enough of a consensus among the various computer models that we can start giving you more detail than we could a few days ago.Precipitation will arrive before sunrise Wednesday morning in the form of RAIN, or at least a mix of rain and wet snow. Roads will be wet pretty much everywhere until 9:00 on average (perhaps turning slick a bit earlier than that in northern Trumbull, and somewhat later from Route 30 south). Notice the projected temperatures locally at 8:00 Wednesday morning: gfs_t2m_b_ohio_21This shows readings still near freezing, and I could see where it is even a few degrees higher than this at 8:00. Especially from Route 30 south.Then, a changeover to heavy, wet snow will occur from north to south. Travel conditions will likely deteriorate pretty quickly. It is March, the snow is falling during the day, the sun angle is much higher than a couple of months ago, and it will be very MILD right before this storm. It takes a HARD thump of snow at this time of the year under these conditions to get the roads to get slick quickly. But I do think that will happen.The vertical velocity field early in the afternoon shows strong upward motion in the atmosphere around the region. Faster rising air=heavier precipitation rates: gfsvvSnow will taper off very late in the afternoon and early in the evening. The afternoon/evening "rush" will be a mess.How much snow?? A few forecasting challenges here.1) Final snow totals will depend a lot on how quickly the changeover to snow occurs at the start of the storm Wednesday morning. The more moisture "wasted" on rain or a mix, the less snow accumulation. The changeover will happen last and the atmosphere will cool slowest from roughly Route 30 southward. So I think snow totals will be appreciably less in places such as East Liverpool and East Palestine compared to our far northern communities.2) The snow-to-liquid ratios will be changing. At first, the ratios will be low, perhaps 7:1 (typical is 10:1). This means the snow will be wet and will not accumulate as efficiently AT FIRST. The ratios will quickly get higher though, perhaps 12:1 or so by the end of the afternoon. So it will take less liquid to produce more snow toward the end of the storm.3) The storm will be strengthening as it pulls east of the Valley, leading to the possibility of some very hefty snow totals in northeastern Trumbull and northern Mercer counties. Especially in Mercer, heavy snow may persist well into the evening.Here's the SREF model for around the airport in southeastern Trumbull County: Screen Shot 2014-03-10 at 8Out of the 21 "members" of this model, each represented by a colored line, there is a range from about 0" to 15". Throwing out the extremes and focusing on where most of the lines are clustered, a reasonable range there is 5-8". The mean, the dark black line, is about 6" or so.Other models, such as the GFS, European and Canadian generally jive with this idea (there are differences, yes, but they are not HUGE at this stage of the game).We will put our "official" snow forecast out this afternoon. But I suspect it will look something like this: 2-4" southeastern Columbiana, 4-8" most everywhere else in viewing area, with perhaps an area of 8"+ in northeast Trumbull and northern Mercer. Stay tuned!!!Thanks for reading!Eric

BLOG: Big Storm Next Week? Or Not?

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Happy Friday!You may or may not have heard rumors and/or have seen images being shared on Facebook about a potential HUGE storm next week. Some have blaring headlines that speculate that if there were to be a storm, it could be comparable to the Superstorm of 1993.I am not going to dive too deep into the meteorology yet today, but will show you a few things demonstrating why the uncertainty at this stage of the game is quite high.The pattern IS ripe for a storm of some variety. But, will everything come together for a BIG storm? Or will the pieces not line up and all we have is "small potatoes". That's the big question. IF there were to be a sizable storm of some kind here, it would be in the Wednesday-Wednesday night time frame. Here's what the latest models say:Canadian model says "meh": canwedIt has a wave of low pressure moving through the Great Lakes and then strengthening some off the coast of Maine. Minimal impacts for the Valley.The GFS model is a bit more interesting: gfswedIt has a storm tracking south of the Ohio River and by Wednesday evening (shown here) it is getting set to head off the coast. This track is one that can bring us a light to moderate snowfall. Perhaps on the order of a few/several inches.The rumors of a BIG storm are courtesy of the European model. If you are new to this, the European model is *generally* regarded as superior to most other models, for many reasons. BUT, it has it's fair share of "busts" too. Here's the European look for Wednesday evening: eurowedA much healthier looking system, and farther north than the GFS. In fact, this run has it far enough north that if it were to be exactly right we would have some concern for mixed precipitation in parts of the Valley (as opposed to all snow).So, pretty big differences between these 3 models right? A Meteorologist's Instant Headache.Why is the European model idea more than just a little credible? Two reasons. 1) It's the European, which again...in a general sense is superior to the other medium range models. 2) The "operational" run, shown here, has quite a bit of support from the European "ensembles".Wha?? Again if you are new to this blog you may be wondering what in the world I am talking about. Here's the quick and dirty answer: The "operational" run is the high-resolution version of a model that is widely available and seen and used by many.  Ensembles are lower-resolution versions of the the same model, run multiple times with the initial meteorological conditions changed somewhat each time. This is done to account for the fact that the data fed into any ONE run of a model is never going to be perfect. Changing that data a bit multiple times helps account for those inevitable errors. Sometimes, these small changes in the initial data result in BIG changes to the model "solution", or what it does with all the weather systems on the map. Sometimes, the changes are small. When the changes are small, the confidence in that solution, or forecast, is higher.ANYWAY (still with me?), there are over 50 members of the European ensemble model. The mean, or average of all of these is not tooooo far from the idea of the operational model. So, confidence in that operational solution is higher than average.For Youngstown, right now the operational model (blue) gives us 7 inches of snow. The ensemble mean (green) has 4 inches: Screen Shot 2014-03-07 at 8.53.18 AMKeep in mind that the model output will count ice/sleet as snow, so if the model is "seeing" mixed precipitation, the snow numbers will be inflated to a certain degree.So, bottom line 5 days out: Next week will start mild but there is potential for a Winter Storm Wednesday-Wednesday night. Right now it's nothing more than potential. I think odds favor accumulating snow in the Valley, but does that mean one inch or much more? No idea yet.As always, will keep you updated! Have a good weekend and thanks for reading. Eric