Weather It Is (Does It Look Like Snow?)

Good Afternoon:

One of our co-workers was sent to Siberia the week before last.  From what I heard, he issued a forecast based on a "look" -- as in: it looks like snow; yet, there wasn't really a good indication in the forecasts that it would be cold enough for snow.  He's reported (one still has to work in Siberia) that it was -29 C when he arrived.   He then reported that there was half a meter of snow in 10 hours, and 1 & 1/2 meters of snow overall.  However, it is now close to 0 degrees, which has turned everything very icy.  This type of weather for Siberia is quite odd!

Here, we have a "similar" problem.  Looking out my window, it does look like snow.  Yet, looking at the forecast models shows that it's going to rain tonight into tomorrow morning, although it will likely be cold enough aloft to mix some sleet/hail in with the rain. 

The rainy weather should take a break (from mid-Tuesday to mid-Wednesday), but a much stronger and even colder storm is forecast Wednesday night into Thursday.  Temperatures are forecast to drop below minus 25 C at 500 mb and possibly as cold as -28 C.  However, strangely, the temperatures closer to the ground are not forecast to be that cold (i.e, between 0 and + 5 C) by morning Thursday, depending on elevation.  In the middle atmosphere, temperatures will be about -8 C, which most likely indicates a very moist layer, but again not very consistent with such cold upper air temperatures.

This is all very odd!  One would think that such cold air aloft would be accompanying by cold air at the surface and that we would be scheduling our second snow-storm of the year.  Still, with such heavy precipitation forecast Wednesday night, one might think that it could precipitate hard enough to whiten the ground and possibly cancel school Thursday morning.  On the other hand, the writer of this blog does not want also to be sent to Siberia!

I will end by noting that (unlike the last system), the ensemble still shows a wide range of possible temperatures and precipitation amounts with this storm. Hence, it is difficult to say yes or no to this or that, other than that a bigger storm should follow the storm tonight.

Barry Lynn