Weather It Is (Heavy Rain, Cold, Gale Winds, Dust, and Snow on the Hermon:)

Good Afternoon

The music plays and the Beatles sing: "Come together right now over me."  Yet, it seems like the Rolling Stones: "I can't get no satisfaction" seems to rule the day.

We've been watching a stormy situation develop for quite a while.  We mentioned the word snow as a possibility for quite a while now, but here's what we see (and there's no snow in our very immediate future).

Cold:  Today is the last of the warm days for quite a while.  Then, the temperatures will drop through Monday into Tuesday.  Cold temperatures will then crawl through the week into Thursday.  Temperatures will be near freezing in the central areas, and below freezing up north on the Golan/Hermon, where snow will fall.

Heavy Rain:  50 to 100 mm of rain are expected by mid-day Tuesday in the north and coastal areas.  There will be 25 to 50 mm of rain in the Kinneret basin.  Rain will proceed slowly north to south beginning Monday night and reaching the central mountains around noon on Tuesday, with 10 to 25 mm.  More rain is expected Tuesday afternoon into Wednesday.

Gale Force Winds:  Winds will begin to shriek Monday evening and reach peak values most likely Tuesday Morning.  They will remain gusty and quite strong into Tuesday night. Higher gusts will also occur.

Snow: Heavy snow on the Hermon (50 to 100 cm) with lighter amounts in surrounding areas of the Golan.

Dust: Heavy dust will develop tomorrow, especially in the coastal areas. The clean-air/dust line will then move slowly southward over Monday night and be south of Jerusalem on Tuesday afternoon.  High dust levels will remain through the afternoon in the southern regions.

The cold air, rain, wind, snow, and dust is courtesy of a strong trough of low pressure centered north of Turkey with an extension into the eastern Mediterranean. The storm is approaching from the west, which is why the air mass associated with it is most likely to be too warm for any snow in the higher elevations of the Galilee and central mountains.

However, the mass of frigid air is expected to remain fairly stationary over the next 10 days or so while higher pressure pushes slowly eastward into western Europe.

Small wave perturbations will rotate southeastward along the interface.  The global ensemble (GEFS) is predicting a 25% chance that one of these will position itself far enough eastward (coupling) within the trough to finally push temperatures below freezing anywhere from late week into next week.

For snow to fall and "stick" in the Jerusalem area we need extremely cold temperatures aloft (close to -30 C; 500 mb), very cold temperatures in the middle atmosphere (-12 C; 700 mb), and a few degrees below freezing temperatures at 850 mb (just 1500 m above sea-level).  We need all of these factors to come together simultaneously.

Some of us hope that we'll eventually come together as a nation ("The People of Israel).  Others, will be happy if just our weather can cooperate.

Regardless, may we all be blessed to find "satisfaction."

Barry Lynn