Friday, December 06, 2013

FRIDAY'S Winter Weather Update: RADAR, SNOWFALL FORECAST


CURRENT RADAR IMAGE FOR NORTHERN OHIO AND OHIO VALLEY



Temps have dropped 30+ degrees over the last 24 hours in northern Ohio.

Look at the temperatures across the Great Lakes yesterday vs this morning



A light dusting of snow/sleet late last night has moved south with a break. The main area of snow (circled in red at the lower left) is now converging across southern Indiana. Expect this snow to make it into northern Ohio by early afternoon.

Here is our SNOWFALL FORECAST FOR TODAY


Thursday, December 05, 2013

Winter Weather Update: COLD AIR COMING, WINTERY MIX, SNOW!

WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY FOR NORTHERN OHIO FOR FRIDAY -- ACCUMULATIONS HAVE BEEN INCREASED FOR FRIDAY. 1-3 IN CLEVELAND; 2-4 INCHES MEDINA; 3-5"+ AKRON, CANTON SOUTH. MORE UPDATES ON FOX8 NEWS

Temps early Thursday made it into the lower 60s. This marks the third straight day with temps above 50; 2 days in the 60s. The arctic air will affect Ohio in two waves. The first is late Friday and Saturday. The stronger one is next week. If we stay in the 20s on Saturday after 60s two days prior is a rare occurrence.  It hasn't happened since 1972!

Two waves of winery weather will develop along the temperature boundary later this evening and tonight.  It glances northern Ohio with some sleet/wet snow with no significant accumulations. The second wave is the "biggie". That develops on the same boundary tomorrow morning. Snow will converge along the front/boundary and start accumulating by midday.

Here are the preliminary accumulations for Friday:

Get ready for a repeat of this late Sunday and Monday....sleet/ice and snow. This time, the temperatures will DROP MUCH MORE behind it next week!

HIGH TEMPERATURES FOR TUESDAY AND WEDNESDAY!




Wednesday, December 04, 2013

Winter Storm FRIDAY...Arctic Air Coming In Two Waves

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WINTER STORM WATCH NOW ISSUED FOR SOUTHERN OHIO FOR FRIDAY. DETAILS AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS POST.


I'm still not convinced that this first push of colder air this weekend will be as strong as advertised. The mean trough stays west of Ohio on Friday and into the weekend. The 500mB flow is out of the southwest so the advection of cold air is more south than east. The core of the cold air doesn't slide east until early next week as the trough migrates into the Great Lakes.
 

I'm not saying that the temperatures won't fall, I'm just a bit hesitant on bring in a 28 degree high for Saturday this far out (I'm writing this Wednesday morning). I've been consistent with my reasoning since Monday. Unless the overall flow changes in the models Thursday or Friday, I'd rather keep the temps in the lower 30s and adjust down if need be. A 5 degree variation is probably more semantic than anything else. Rarely does someone feel a difference between 28 and 33. But this pattern, as I see it, will no doubt occur again later this winter if the mean trough stays in the center of the US. Better learn the specifics now than be blindsided later...Now to the specifics of the Friday forecast:

Temps will start to fall Thursday but as I said earlier, the winds will parallel the front. So the front stalls and a low develops along it over the panhandle of Texas. It moves along the sharp temperature gradient along the Ohio River.

So the dividing line between rain and snow will bisect Ohio. Expect precipitation to move in fast tomorrow (Thursday) night and early Friday.
 
The movement of a few miles will greatly affect how much snow we get and who see it Friday. The European model is fairly aggressive with snowfall amounts for all of Ohio. The heaviest snow seems to stay south. Stay tuned for more adjustments to the snow amounts and locations.


Tuesday, December 03, 2013

November Summary for Cleveland and Ohio

Thanksgiving is over. The weather is beginning to quiet down. The snow cover has finally melted. What a better time than now to look back at how November stacked up versus last November and other Novembers of the past. Was it colder than last year? How cold/warm was it? Did we see an abnormal amount of snow? The graphics below should shed some light on this.

The overall pattern has featured a trough across the Great Lakes with the ridge out west. This allowed bursts of colder air to drain into Ohio. Notice that last year, the trough was out over the eastern seaboard. The western ridge was stronger and further east.



First the temperatures:  Over the last 4 years, much of the US had above normal temperatures with the exception of the east coast. This year, most locations east of the continental divide were well below average.


Yet here in northern Ohio, the average temperature this year was not much colder than last November. The November temperatures over the last two years were below the 30 year running average. November 2013 was the coldest November since 2000.

Even when you look at the average high temperatures (not counting the overnight lows) the numbers are similar to 2012.

The true indicator lies in the extremes. The number of days above 50 degrees were identical to 2012...

...yet the number of days below 40 degrees was far and away higher than last year, second only to 2008, third highest in 17 years.

How about snowfall? More than 2/3rds of the state had at least 2" of snow. The last time that happened (eyeballing this) was in 1980!
Cleveland snowfall was the highest since 2008, just slightly above the 4.4" average.