Light Snow on Monday

After another snow-changing-to-rain event, our ground is pretty much bare again.  In fact, most of the lower 48 states don't have much snow on the ground.  The biggest exception is around the Great Lakes (the result of lake-effect snow) and the high terrain of the West, with just a light dusting in eastern Montana on over to Minnesota and Iowa.


But we should get a few inches of snow on Monday.  The ECMWF model isn't very excited about this event, giving Spokane just under an inch.


The GFS model is a bit more excited, with 2.4" forecast for Spokane.  But throughout this fall and early winter, the GFS has been over-forecasting snow.



The snow should start early Monday morning and last much of the day.


But as you can see in the image above, after that Monday snow, the precipitation most likely turns to rain again, even into next weekend and the following week.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Wetter Weather Ahead

Image
In our last blog, we talked how broad low pressure was forecast to develop over the western US.  The details on this are starting to take shape.  I'll probably provide an update on this during the middle of the week, but here's where things stand now. First, we'll have a few dry and warmer days after our cold front on Saturday night.  High pressure will build into the area Monday through Wednesday.  Temperatures will be in the mid to upper 60s on Tuesday and Wednesday, with a little cooling on Thursday. But it won't last.  The low pressure in the above graph that is off the California coast will merge with the small low off the west coast of Canada.  This will create a broad area of low pressure over the western US by the end of the week. This weather pattern will bring us a cool and wet Thursday night and Friday.  The rain could reach our area by Thursday afternoon, but the best odds are for Thursday night, with showers on Friday.   That said, if...
Read more

A Big Change in the Weather Pattern

Image
It has been a wet November.  Multiple storms delivering over an inch of rain this month.  Here's some precipitation observations for the month of November so far. Officially at Spokane Airport, 3.57" has fallen in November, which is the wettest November since 2006.  The all-time wettest November was in 1897 with 5.85". For Deer Park, 5.35" of precipitation has fallen in November, which is just shy of the 5.45" in 2006. But as we know, these kinds of things tend to average themselves out.  While we've been very wet for the past 30 days, the eastern part of the US has been very mild.  Short pants on Halloween.  Wildfires in the northeast.  And now we're going to see the pattern reverse.  The West will dry out and the East will be in the news with winter weather. Here's the current weather map.  Stormy in the West, warm in the Midwest, and a storm exiting the northeast. Here's the forecast for next weekend.  The pattern has flipped.  D...
Read more

Looking Ahead to Spring and Summer

Image
With the snow having melted and the road weight limit signs going up, our thoughts are naturally turning to Spring.  Will the mild temperatures and rain continue?  First, let's look at where we are on moisture. In the Northwest, things overall are on the drier side, with pockets of above normal precipitation. Zooming in a bit, we can see that the Columbia Basin overall has had above-normal precipitation, while much of the rest of the state has had near- or below- normal precipitation.  This makes sense.  We have had very little wind this winter (only one windy storm I can think of).  So the Cascade rain shadow hasn't been a factor this year. Looking even closer at a few locations, we see precipitation is very close to normal for mid-February.  In fact, it's rare that it is so close to normal (I know, that sounds strange).  Here's the Spokane Airport trace since October 1st.  The green line is the actual accumulated precipitation for this winter, w...
Read more