Monday, December 17, 2007

First blizzard of the season: This weekend?

Some signals are now showing up that would bring a high-impact winter storm to the Upper Midwest for the upcoming weekend. The current forecast from the GFS and European computer models develop a gigantic area of low pressure over the Midwest with widespread wind and blizzard conditions and 12" snows for areas west of the low-center. Strong thunderstorms will be possible east of the low-center with a squall line down to the Gulf Coast.

The exact track will not be known for days. Should low pressure rapidly develop like this, it would indeed be the first major blizzard of the 2007/2008 winter season. Where it decides to go is anyone's guess right now. Stay tuned!

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

wow!!! to close. huge storm? wondering how much its possible now for a white christmas?

Justin said...

wow I didn't even know this was coming. I saw on the 12 oclock news that we might get some snow this weekend, but I didn't think blizzard conditions. I guess it'll give me something to do.

Eric Sorensen said...

To be honest, right now it gives us a whole lot of rain (which in itself would induce flooding problems). If there's any change in track...and we know how that works (Saturday's snow) it could bring about some major problems for those traveling for Christmas. -ERIC

tony said...

Knowing rockfords luck, we proably will get all rain and upper 30s to low 40s. This storm may be our only chance now for a white xmas. But honestly I don't see all this snow melting by next tuesday. Do u think we still have a good chance at a white xmas eric, or is it looking dimmer.

Unknown said...

The 18z moved it a little to the east. Keep on goin that way!

Eric Sorensen said...

adam: Yeah, it's totally up in the air. From last night's model runs to this morning's it went from being a pure snowstorm for us to a major rainstorm. The models will likely flip flop back and forth the next few days. -ERIC

WI Weather Buff said...

Eric, I was having trouble finding the month-by-month Winter Outlook that you posted last fall. Could you put some handy links to those prediction so people can look back & see how its panning out?

From what I remember, it seems to me that December is pretty much turning out as you'd predicted. So I wanted to check back & see.

Also, as I recall, you'd predicted that January was going to "lighten up" a tad. Looking forward to that...

Justin said...

They weren't joking when they said El Nino winters had more precip... Ive remembered in the past we had one (I think 99-00) where it got up into the 70s in February I think it was... That would be nice.

Eric Sorensen said...

weather buff: use the tabs on the bottom right to navigate to NOVEMBER 5. That's when we started our winter outlook series.

December is going as planned so far! -ERIC

Justin said...

The 00z pushes it farther east... But I keep forgetting which models are more accurate.

Eric Sorensen said...

Justin: Yes it did! If the model didn't deviate at all between now and Saturday, we'd have a blizzard. You know what I'm going to say though...

The model will change again, but watch for consistency! If we get that, it will increase our confidence.

More to come in the next few days. -ERIC

tony said...

It did push it further east, honestly if it pushes it a tad further east and stays there, looks like we will be in the cold air for a full blown snowstorm, but the track I see, we would still be in the warm air til sunday. I know the unreliable weather channel shows 43 and rain on saturday with light snow showers on sunday. Cmon models,give us a huge snow for the weekend even though I have to work all weekend. Eric, at what times should we look at different models.

Eric Sorensen said...

The 12z and 00z models are more accurate than the 18z and 06z models. The reason? Data from the NWS's weather balloons is used for the 12z and 00z models. Since balloons are only deployed at 6a and 6p, there isn't any additional data for the 18z and 06z models to use. Just a little Meteorology 101.

Have a good night all! -ERIC

Anthony said...

US CART PUSHERS AT WAL-MART DONT NEED THE SNOW OR RAIN!

Justin said...

My friend was a cart pusher at wal-mart. All he did was complain about it and he finally got fired a week or two ago.