Enjoyed the sunny days??? Sadly, starting as early as tomorrow morning, our sunshine will give way to clouds. Rain makes a return on Wednesday night... probably more like early early Thursday morning. Chance of snow? With all the cold air covering the lower atmosphere, one would think any moisture that came over our area would surely fall as snow. There are a few things I look for on a weather model to depict weather (pun) or not we see snow. First, I look at the predicted temp at about 5,000 foot level. This is where most moisture hovers at before pouring their guts out. Second... I look at where the 540 line is. (On most weather models, this line is a solid line generally written as 5400). Warm moisture over cold air generally means rain for us but sometimes we could see snow pellets or even freezing rain... but the latter is rare for our area. The 540 line, as a general rule, means that 50% of the times the moisture is ripe for snow above 1000 feet. It is not an exact science, and not the ONLY thing that I would look at... reading the NWS Scientific Weather Discussions and general observations is needed too. However, I recently called for no snow in the Portland Metro area (except along the Columbia River Gorge) despite the NWS of Portland insisting on snow. I probably just got lucky). I digress... In a nut shell, we will not see snow on Wednesday night as the system is too warm having come from the south. Another system shows up Friday that will cool things down. This system is coming from the west and will be a lot colder. In fact, that 540 line will dip down towards Portland. With that said, I still do not see snow except possibly above 1000 feet... but certainly for the passes (3,000 - 4,000 feet). Expecting a lot of snow for the mountains this weekend. A steady line of moisture comes our way through next Wednesday thanks to the Jet stream setting up right over us. We will see periods of windy conditions too. Daytime temps will remain in the lower 50s due to the lack of sun to heat us up, but nighttime lows will stay in the mid to lower 40s, due to lack of that eastern flow of cold air through the weekend. Not much is expected to change through this week. Attached is a snapshot of the current weather (at time of post). See if you can spot the 540 line (5400) and see if you can see where all the snowfall is. The second attached picture is the 850 mb (5,000 feet). Can you see where the snow is in relation to the cold temps aloft?
Posted on: Tue, 18 Nov 2014 05:16:40 +0000
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