The high temperatures on Friday and Saturday get progressively warmer. Saturday looks like a great day for some spring skiing. A system currently off the coast of British Columbia will pass to the north of our patrol zone on Sunday, likely bringing only an inch or less to our patrol zone.
Then, things get confusing. Another system moves in from the northwest. The American Model predicts it will pass to our north, and we’ll only get a bit of snow on Tuesday and Wednesday. The Canadian Model says it will pass to our north, but we’ll get a decent amount of snow from Monday afternoon through Thursday. And, the European Model forecasts that the system will hit us dead-on, and we’re looking at a decent storm in that Monday to Thursday time-frame.
Here are the total snow forecasts from this system per each model:
19” – European Model
7” – Canadian Model
1” – American Model
I’ve never been a fan of the traditional 1-3”, 2-4”, 3-6” style forecasts because sometimes the models tend to agree and these limited ranges of snow forecasts make sense, while other times the models are all over the place, and the traditional forecasts do not reflect this. I take my role as just to be a reporter, letting everyone know what the models are saying, and occasionally interjecting a little bit of an editorial. This one is a real puzzler as it’s all about which direction the storm will take. If anything the European Model has tended to underpredict the storms and the American Model has tended to overpredict the storms over the last month for our patrol zone – but this is the opposite forecast from them.
So, let’s be fair. Right now we have no idea how much snow we’ll get next week. It could get anywhere from a dusting to two feet.
Do your snow dances, and fingers’ crossed the European Model is correct.
Retrospective Discussion:
After several storms underperforming in our patrol zone, it was nice to see 6” in the Eldora Snowstake Cam from Tuesday’s storm, and for the first time in a while, our patrol zone seems to have gotten the most amount of snow out of the system in the entire state. I’d guess that the jet stream lined up perfectly as the wind direction certainly didn’t indicate that we would get the most snow in the state. In any event, let’s not look a gift horse in the mouth, even if most of that 6” blew off to Kansas in the winds. The WRF Model did the best job of predicting the storm, with the Canadian Model a little high, the American Model a little low, and the European and UK Met models too low.
Cheers.
-Jordan (Thursday (4/7) afternoon)
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.
