Merry Christmas everyone! We have lots of little snowfalls over the next week, with warming temperatures compared to the last few days.
Tomorrow, Christmas Eve, a small system from the northwest crosses to the north of our patrol zone. Then, there’s a repeat of the same thing again. On Monday, a second larger system from the northwest again crosses to the north of our patrol zone on Monday. We’re just on the edge of these two systems, and it may result in a bit of snow Saturday through Monday. Here are the model forecasts totals for Christmas Eve, Christmas, and Monday:
4” – European Model
3” – Canadian Model
1” – American, WRF, and UK Met Models
Then a large messy system from the west looks to hit our patrol zone (and much of the western US) on Wednesday. Here is the Wednesday to Thursday forecast from each model:
3” – Canadian Model
2” – American and European Models
Then, on the edge of forecast fairyland, some models (but not others) have another system from the west comes in around next Friday / Saturday.
A little snow is much better than no snow.
Retrospective Discussion:
It’s always great when we get more snow than predicted, and the Eldora webcam showed 14” of snow from the Wednesday night storm, while all four global models I checked before the storm predicted 5-6”. Talk about being way too pessimistic. The best explanation for this is that jet streaks are notoriously difficult for the models to get their arms around. I know that’s not terribly helpful as we could have as easily been skunked as getting all that bonus snow. It’s always good to remember that weather is, by definition, chaotic.
Hope everyone has a wonderful holiday!
-Jordan (Friday (12/23/22 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.
