Sun, Dec 15, 2013 winter storm forecast for Sat, Dec 21

#toledo #weather

http://toledotalk.com/weather/html/forecast-discussion.html

area forecast discussion
national weather service cleveland oh
657 pm est sun dec 15 2013

long term /thursday through sunday/...
warmer southerly winds will develop on thursday as high pressure
moves off the middle atlantic coast. the pressure gradient will
increase into friday as low pressure moves from the southern plains
to the western great lakes. moisture levels should increase enough
by friday to bring a period of rain to the region. the cold front
associated with this low will move across northern ohio and nw pa
by friday evening but it will stall near the ohio river valley.
there will be some light snow in the wake of the front into friday
night. the stalled frontal boundary will then become the track for
an area of low pressure to move from the gulf coast to the ohio
river valley on sunday. plenty of uncertainty with this scenario
with precipitation timing and type.
it will be warmer on thursday with most locations returning to
within a couple degrees of 40. slightly cooler over the thicker
snowpack across nw pa. by friday afternoon many locations should
make a run at 50 degrees. we then return to near seasonal averages
for saturday into sunday.
&&

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Next weekend's storm is really up in the air at this point. The two main models I look at for that time frame are the ECMWF (Euro) and the GFS (US-based) models. The GFS runs once every 6 hours and the Euro once every 12 hours. The GFS has almost literally put out a new solution for that storm with every run. The Euro is a bit more stable. Based on what we had today (the new GFS is just starting its 00Z run so we are a couple hours from the results) is this...

1) There will be a significant storm system stretching from the Southern Plains northeast through the Ohio Valley.

2) There will be significant snow and icing with this storm, probably also some severe weather in the Southeast.

3) The specific impacts to a specific area is just up in the air right now. For example, down here in OKC the various solutions have ranged from completely dry to half inch of ice and a foot of snow. For Toledo it has bounced around from a light snow/sleet mix with maybe an inch or two, to somewhere near 14 inches of snow.

The afternoon Euro run has the main snow band going along I-71 essentially and about 50-75 miles on either side. The center of the band was painted with about a foot of snow. For Toledo specifically...maybe an inch or two.

The general large scale areas that will be impacts are pretty locked in, it is coming down to the smaller scale that we are probably still a couple days out on from knowing. My general rule of thumb is 3 to 4 consecutive model runs of the (nearly) same solution before I start getting too focused on specifics.

To compare, this latest snow storm for you guys was showing up consistently in the models for over 5 days in advanced. The amounts fluctuated a bit based on available moisture forecasts, but the area of impact remained the same.

I'll try to go into some specifics tomorrow for you guys on what to expect. The confidence in the forecast though will be pretty low until model consistency increases. Also feel free to follow/like/bookmark these:

https://twitter.com/wxspotlight
https://www.facebook.com/WeatherSpotlight
http://ohio.weatherspotlight.com/

I try to toss up any thoughts I have on those. The website itself is still a work in progress as a few of the maps are still focused on the Southern Plains - which you guys don't care about. :)

! posted by JustaSooner on Dec 15, 2013 at 09:30:22 pm

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