Saturday, December 17, 2011

Christmas Snowstorm Discussion (Northeast Affected) (Updated 12/17)

Confidence Level: Very Low
The system we are watching for a potential Christmas snow event is the area of dark blue water vapor to the left of the circle-shaped disturbance. It is the one that looks somewhat like a line. This disturbance will move southeastward and eventually make landfall into the Southwest. From there, the models are indicating the potential for this disturbance to slide eastward in the Southern half of the country and eventually 'bomb out' (strengthen very rapidly) as it comes into contact with the East Coast.
The area affected would be the Northeast if this all panned out. The Relative Predictability measures you may have seen in previous posts are not in a good enough agreement for me to feel confident about posting the image and having to explain possibly false information.
Just for looks, we will bring up the GFS Individual Ensembles (click to enlarge image).
GFS Individual Ensembles at Hour 174 of the 6z run.
Thick blue line is rain/snow line- anything above it is theoretically snow.
The GFS ensembles are also mixed up right now, but most are coming to grips with it, and that prospect is encouraging. Our confidence level is very low right now because the models are not stable this far out. We will, however, continue to monitor this storm system and keep you informed for a potential white Christmas-bringing storm.

2 comments:

Mike Paulocsak said...

Good morning Andrew.Does it look promising for snow in my area from this storm?

Andrew said...

Possibly, but this storm is too far out to tell.