Forecast Summary:
Boring until Friday. Snow on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday but not huge snow totals. Boring after Sunday.
Forecast Discussion:
We will be sitting under a weak ridge of high pressure through Thursday, with a half inch of snow possible on Wednesday but otherwise pretty boring and pleasant weather.
Things get interesting on Friday with the next system. (This is the system that I wrote about coming in on Thursday, not Friday, in my post late last week.) A trough of low pressure passes over us on Friday, generating a cutoff low. Unfortunately it looks like the cutoff low will leave our area on its way to the Midwest too quickly to produce too much snow. The snow will likely extend down to the plains. Here are the model forecasts for our patrol zone for Friday / Saturday:
5.5” – American Model
3” – European Model
1” – Canadian Model
Weather turns temporarily pleasant after that system passes, but another weak system passes by on Sunday (1” per the American, European, and Canadian Models). By early next week, which is practically forecast fairyland, another ridge of high pressure looks to dominate the weather for a few days with very warm temperatures.
Retrospective Discussion:
Monday’s snow was on the low end of what I predicted (which was 1-4”), with the Lake Eldora Snotel picking up somewhere between .1 to .2 of SWE (or 1-2” of snow).
-Jordan (Tuesday morning)
Note: Unless otherwise noted, all forecasts are for 10,000’ in exposed areas. References to American Model are the American (GFS) Model. References to the Canadian Model are the Canadian (GDPS) Model. References to the WRF Model are the CAIC WRF Hi-Res Model. References to the European Model are the European (ECMWF) Model.
