All three National Weather Service offices (Milwaukee, Davenport, and Chicago) have issued Winter Storm Watches for this weekend's winter storm. Our evening models are just coming in. The intensity hasn't changed. The track hasn't changed. If anything, the models have slowed the storm down just a little bit. We may want to push back the onset of the precip until noon Saturday. At that time, freezing rain will be a possibility with ice accumulations up to 1/2 inch. Once the center of low pressure passes to our east the column of air above us will fall below 32°. This will yield snow...and quite a bit of it!
Think of it this way: We have 1.5" of water that will fall Saturday night into Sunday. It is plausable that we get 1/2" of ice accumulation Saturday evening. Once we cool the atmosphere, there will still be 1" of water to take care of. If that comes as snow, the 10:1 ratio gives us 10 inches of snow.
It is a certainty we will have a winter storm. How crippling this storm will be is hard to imagine. We can deal with 10-12" of snow. We can't deal with major icing (or worse, snow on top of major ice). Stay with 13News for updates. -ERIC
10 comments:
I remember that you mentioned before that the water:snow ratio can vary... so is it possible we could end up with just 5-7? or even worse 12-15?
Fire them Sleds Up
let her fly one last time! we really need a doozy of a storm... havent had one like this in a while and we are due for it.... let me know on what u think of this storm... also my mom is leaving Rockford Airport 10:30 saterday moring does she look clear at all?
justin: the ratio of 10:1 is an average for temperatures 28-32°. We've got around 1 inch of available water. It appears most of that will fall as snow. If we mix in sleet, snow totals will be held at or under 6". If it's all snow, it may be 12".
mike: it appears that there will be some light precip for saturday morning, but this will really ramp up saturday night into sunday. there could even be some thundersnow for sunday! -ERIC
By the way, we'll be putting out our official snowfall forecast map tomorrow at five. We like to get these out 24 hours before the event. Since the onset of this system will likely be Saturday afternoon, we'll use a few more model runs to fine-tune the forecast. -ERIC
eric what is thundersnow? i mean ive heard about it a lot but i just dont know what it is? Also does it add the snow up faster?
you get thundersnow when there is so much ascent in the clouds that lightning and thunder forms. it is fairly rare, only happening in strong winter storms. Because of the increased dynamics during thundersnow, accumulations are often enhanced.
I feel like I could do almost as good a job as you guys on predicting storms just by looking at my employer's out-of-town meeting schedule. It seems like every single time I've been scheduled to drive to an out-of-town meeting we've had a major winter storm. But while I'm just sitting in the office looking out the window the weather has been great. I'm starting to wonder if my employer has hired an evil meteorologist just to predict when to schedule out-of-town meetings.
I work sort-of late nights, so I won't be headed home tonight until 1130 or so, should I just use my dad's SUV since it has 4-wheel drive, or is there nothing to worry about tonight?
also, should people just plan on staying in all weekend?
Evil meteorologists? Hahaha!
Anonymous: If you don't use the 4X4, can I borrow it? -ERIC
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