Weather It Is (A Storm Cooks)

Good Morning:

Last night the Knicks missed a chance to win on a 3-point end of the game buzzer shot. In and out, and the crowd groaned.

On the hand, it was an exciting game and part of the excitement is the tee-shirt give-away where tee-shirts are shot into the crowd.  Towards the end of the game one such tee-shirt headed over my way, to bounce off the hands of a young lady to my left right into my lap.  My son, being a gentlemen, tried to give it away to his cousin (whose father took us to the game).  Fortunately, his cousin is even more of a gentlemen.

Sometimes things do just fall into your lap, and an end of the month snowstorm may be just such a phenomena.

While today will be chilly, the week will quickly warm up ahead of a deepening trough that is forecast to plunge down over the eastern Mediterranean late in the week. Unlike previous storms that missed us to the west and north, this storm is suppose to arrive directly from the northwest. The majority of the  latest global ensemble forecasts show the preferred storm trajectory will bring us some unusually cold temperatures in both the lower and middle atmosphere. Moreover, their appears to be a west to east moisture stream that should bring plenty (but not extreme) precipitation amounts into the area of the central mountains as well.

The preferred "snow-dates" are the 28th and 29th of January, and the cold may linger into February.

There is, of course, a fly in the ointment: the upper level, 500 mb support for this storm is not yet firm. In fact, it may arrive before the coldest air in the middle and lower atmosphere.  For the best snow situation, we'd like the upper level trough to align with the middle (700 mb) and lower (850 mb) cold air. This brings the greatest threat of convective/thundersnow as the 500 mb trough encourages divergence aloft and rising air.

On the other hand, I only had to grab that shirt with a slight movement of my hands, so let's hope that our next storm system falls as easily into the forecasters lap.

Barry Lynn