Weather It Is (Rain and then Rain or Snow)

 Good Evening:

1) Heavy and thunderstorms tonight (Monday night) into Tuesday.

2) Heavy rain over coastal areas, but snow possible late Tuesday night into Wednesday in the higher elevations of the central mountains.  Snow is also possible in the northern mountains of the Galilee and Golan.

While folks have been out and about on their business today, we've been taking care of our business in the "Israel Winter Weather" group (of three).   We're all three in agreement that the wind trajectory will be ideal for snow late Tuesday night into Wednesday, as winds blow from the northwest ahead of our upcoming midweek storm. We're all in agreement that temperatures should approach freezing and that the mountainous terrain should encourage precipitation to form as the coldest air moves in late Tuesday night into Wednesday morning.  

Our developing storm is also well-synchronized at the lower and upper levels to enhance precipitation rates as the coldest air moves in towards morning.  In the past, we've seen some cold air at lower levels arrive after the main forcing at upper levels had already departed.

As for snow amounts, we can only guess now, but prefer not to. We'll wait until Tuesday morning to run a very high resolution forecast.  Snow will be more likely to accumulate in Gush Etzion than in Jerusalem, but we're not ruling out snow accumulation in both places.  However, we're not ruling it in as well, as we need to see tomorrow's update, which will tell us more about the low level cold. 

In any case, this storm is a relatively fast mover, so the potential snow won't last into the evening hours.

We should see snow, but will it be something to throw around or hinder travel?  We just don't know, yet.

The end of the month should see a return to winter again.

Barry Lynn