Wednesday, December 2, 2009

The Break Down Of This Developing Storm. Start's With Rain, Then A Mixture, Followed By A Few Light Flurries...

Hey bloggers. Many of you are wondering about this developing system for the greater Lafayette, as well as the rest of the WLFI viewing area. Well, what do we have to look forward to? There are so many things to take note of when forecasting this system. Last year was only my first year forecasting winter weather in Indiana. I have to say I learned a lot of how to forecast winter weather and I also found better models that help make things easier! I feel like I have a better idea as to how things will work this winter so lets hope I can stay on top of things! :)

One things we talked about last month when looking into the winter outlook was the Storm track. And the main storm track was setting up to our east which means Ohio, and areas east of there would see the best chances of snow! However this does not mean we will miss out. When forecasting systems like this one we need to remember that these storms can move a good 100 to 200 miles more north and west then what the weather models show us! That was the case last year when we got that 5" inches dumped on us. But will that be the case this time??
Well, above is a look at the radar last night. This is the developing system that will makes it's way into the Indiana area by later on this evening into early Thursday. Here's how I'm breaking it down. If that cold front would have made a move on us last night then we would be cold enough for this to become a nice snow maker for our area. However we are not expecting this front to really start to make a move on us until later on tonight into early Thursday morning. So the change over from rain to all snow won't be fast enough and most of the needed moisture will be passed our area.

However I do still look for some possible snow flurries early early morning of Thursday. Do I see much in the way of snow accumulation? Sorry to say but not this time. But flurries are possible! ;)
Now every weather model I use is showing this storm moving over Indiana and then just off to the east. However some weather watchers are calling for heavy snowfall in IL. I just want to point out why I'm not seeing or calling for that. This model above is a simulated radar image. Many use this model however I won't use it. Why? Well, to me this model is more wrong then it is right. And once again this is the only model calling for this heavy band of snow over the IL, area as seen above and below.You can see this is the precipitation type model and it is showing that band to be in the form of all snow and just dump it in IL. I still don't see this happening. And I'm not the only one!

So what is my call for this system? Well, I think we start out with rain showers today into tonight. However as we head into late tonight and early early morning of Thursday we may start to change over to a mixture of both rain and snow. In the early morning of Thursday we may see a few scattered left over snow flurries however I don't look for much in the way of accumulation. I just feel that by the time we got cold enough for snow most of the moisture will be passed our area as I have said above.

Still I will continue to watch this system and I will check back with another update tonight! Be sure to tune in for the latest..........

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the update Justin, well too bad for you that we will be missing out on the snow LOL! Actually I would rather have snow this time of year than the cold rain, ugh!

Teri

Anonymous said...

Justin your page looks really nice!

MA in REM

Anonymous said...

Justin your page looks really nice!

MA in REM

Anonymous said...

Raining and temp is only 40*, yucky day.

Brow said...

Looking forward to seeing the flurries tomorrow....really wish we were in the heavy zone!

Anonymous said...

Love your graphics, Justin. I'm one of those who are okay with no snow, so this rain is just fine with me.