Wednesday, February 12, 2014
Snow update:
Mix bag on the way..cold air leaving, storm hugs the coast
Sussex County
Trace to 4 inches, then heavy rain, ends as snow.
Kent County: 4-8 inches, then sleet and rain ending as snow.
New Castle County 6-10, sleet, rain ending as snow
Monday, February 10, 2014
Thursday Snow update- Big storm a lock, snow vs ice vs rain unknown at this time.
Challenging event on tap for those forecasting the Wilmington, Dover and Newark Delaware areas.
Bitter cold start to Wednesday morning with lows in the SINGLE digits maybe even a few places BELOW zero.
Storm forms down in the gulf of Mexico.
Cold air is in place, but slowly leaving.
Storm starts over night Wednesday into Thursday.
Storm COULD be a little to close to the coast for most of the state for a HUGE snow.
Most of Sussex County will be a burst of snow, MAYBE and then rain.
Kent-- snow to ice to rain, ending as snow. Could be a decent snow before it changes over
New Castle should be a decent front end snow that goes to rain and drizzle, should end as snow.
Front side THUMP of snow could be significant of 6+ inches first. Back side could add a few more inches.
If you're wanted more snow days, hope the low doesn't hug the coast and heads away quicker. At this time, I think the low goes from near Wilmington NC, to RIGHT near Rehoboth. Without a strong block to hold the cold air in place, much of the state will battle rain for at least a while. 6+ is very possible in New Castle County even with the rain and ice, and 4+ is very possible with the chance in Kent. Sussex will struggle to see much more than rain as currently progged.
Will updated later.
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Bitter cold start to Wednesday morning with lows in the SINGLE digits maybe even a few places BELOW zero.
Storm forms down in the gulf of Mexico.
Cold air is in place, but slowly leaving.
Storm starts over night Wednesday into Thursday.
Storm COULD be a little to close to the coast for most of the state for a HUGE snow.
Most of Sussex County will be a burst of snow, MAYBE and then rain.
Kent-- snow to ice to rain, ending as snow. Could be a decent snow before it changes over
New Castle should be a decent front end snow that goes to rain and drizzle, should end as snow.
Front side THUMP of snow could be significant of 6+ inches first. Back side could add a few more inches.
If you're wanted more snow days, hope the low doesn't hug the coast and heads away quicker. At this time, I think the low goes from near Wilmington NC, to RIGHT near Rehoboth. Without a strong block to hold the cold air in place, much of the state will battle rain for at least a while. 6+ is very possible in New Castle County even with the rain and ice, and 4+ is very possible with the chance in Kent. Sussex will struggle to see much more than rain as currently progged.
Will updated later.
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Saturday, February 8, 2014
Light to moderate snow event on Tap Sunday night into Monday.
Clipper system will approach from the west Sunday night and bring ANOTHER round of winter weather.
We are back in the climatology pattern of more snow north and west of Philly.
As of now:
Most of Sussex County- flurries and snow showers that coat the ground at best
Kent County: light snow. Coating south, up to an inch North.
New Castle County: Inch south of the C and D Canal, up to three inches near the PA line.
Here is a liquid equivalent map from a model called the GFS:
lighter shade is under .1, grows in increments of .1,
Much of the New Castle is in the .2 range. This will be a drier snow so ratios could be more like 13-15 to 1. (Snow is often stated to be 1 inch of rain makes 10 inches of snow)
I think a Winter Weather Advisory is issued for New Castle County from the NWS. Kent County is a big MAYBE at this time, depending on model trends.
We are back in the climatology pattern of more snow north and west of Philly.
As of now:
Most of Sussex County- flurries and snow showers that coat the ground at best
Kent County: light snow. Coating south, up to an inch North.
New Castle County: Inch south of the C and D Canal, up to three inches near the PA line.
Here is a liquid equivalent map from a model called the GFS:
lighter shade is under .1, grows in increments of .1,
Much of the New Castle is in the .2 range. This will be a drier snow so ratios could be more like 13-15 to 1. (Snow is often stated to be 1 inch of rain makes 10 inches of snow)
I think a Winter Weather Advisory is issued for New Castle County from the NWS. Kent County is a big MAYBE at this time, depending on model trends.
Friday, February 7, 2014
Weekend Update
A few winter weather events are on the way to greater Delaware area.
Over the weekend from the famous 30 inch FB blizzard, 2 separate blips of moisture will head in and impact the area. Both will be minor with maybe a coating to an inch both on Saturday and Sunday. Not a big deal at all.
Monday, a more potent system approaches from the west and has a shot to drop an inch or two, especially north of Dover. Anything this far out has a high rate of change.
Wednesday- Thursday another low approaches out of the Gulf of Mexico, but the cold air is leaving as the storm approaches. This seems to have the makings of the "Delaware Special" of snow to sleet to rain.
Note on this map where I've made some crude marks:
1. High Pressure East of Maine-- that's moving east and taking our cold air supply with it.
2. Low pressure over Minnesota. That's not good having that to our NW because it turns the flow aloft to the SW, which eventually aides in the warming process.
3. We do have a Gulf of Mexico low, which is a good thing.
Please know-
Weather models over 5 days are used for pattern ideas, not specifics. No real give ideas on accumulations because they would be highly subject to change. In certain situations you can make an educated guess, the pattern this year has been unstable and what's called a "north trend" on the models has been an issue. Think of the Monday snow last week where at first it was modeled as a Central VA event, then a DC event with Delaware being fringed, then jackpot Delaware, and finally it was mainly a rain event with the best snows being north of the PA border.
Days 3-4 should allow for a general concepts and ideas, but the fine details will lacking and subject to change. You can lose a storm to model error after day 5-- days 3-4 should allow for more confidence, just finer details will be missing and subject to change.
Days 1-2 should be fine tuning the details like how much snow, when will it change to rain, ice--ect.
Weather models are a tool to use along with forecasting skill and knowledge of local climate that allows for better forecasting. Often, when a weatherman is wrong is because they don't have exact data. If you were asked to estimate spending over a 7 day period, you could get a general idea but the EXACT amount be off. Weather models are very skilled in that they have to do a ton of estimation based on CURRENT information. However, the details will always be cloudy the farther out any event is.
Thursday, February 6, 2014
First post-- An introduction and weather
Feb 6th, 2014
I had thought about doing this sooner and likely should have.
Brief background:
Many of you have known me for years as I was born and raised in New Castle, DE. I moved away for college and never came back. I've lived in Lynchburg VA since 1996.
The weather hobby:
As a child, my goal was to become a TV weatherman. If you all remember Jim O'Brian from ABC in Philly was my hero and the poor guy died in parachute accident in 1983 ish. I was very good at math and science but really didn't know much about weather other than the guys on TV and the National Weather Service. Of all things, My blind father got me into weather.
At some point: I just became interested in other things. I'm not sure why but there were multiple factors. I think one issue surely was that I had a pretty intense stutter and figured that I could never do TV. Had I know the other opportunities, things could have been different. I actual did a 3 week intensive speech therapy program when I was 29 and it really changed my life. I looked back into Meteorology AFTER getting my Masters in Counseling and even knocking out part of my PhD. I did a large portion of an operational meteorology degree but never finished because I got married and had a child. :)
On an exciting note- I did cut a demo 3 years ago for a local TV station. The local guy had turned on to my blog and noted my skill. Honestly, the presentation was lousy because I had no experience on the green screen and the speech targets I use had some extra stress with me trying to do the clicking and pointing. With practice, I know I could have done 100x better. With that, if I can ever make a little money from this blog, I'd love to buy some software that would allow me to cut vidoes for these blogs.
So, this is a nice consolation prize. I try to update when big weather events are on the way and winter weather is clearly my favorite. With the advent of online writers getting weather gigs, maybe there is hope for something. At one point, I could name every big and small snowstorm from about 1980 or so and with age I've lost some of the smaller events but any big snow in Delaware between 1980 and 1993 or so I could tell you WAY too much information about it.
Active year so far after 2-3 lousy winters with Wilmington Airport having over 30 inches so far. A normal winter is around 20 inches, but normal has not been the rule for a while with either VERY big years or very small years.
Looking at the weekend--
The famous FB blizzard map that went viral isn't happening. If the jet streams had "phased" meaning worked together, a bigger event would have been possible. It seems the first piece comes through Saturday with a chance for snow, at this time more likely to coat the ground in Central and Southern Delaware and the second piece Sunday, more likely to coat the ground in Northern Delaware.
Another even is looming for Wednesday and Thursday. Anything 5-6 days away is harder to nail down finer details. We will have colder air in place, but slowly easy out as a low pressure comes out of the Gulf of Mexico. This usually means snow changing to ice then rain. There can still be a DECENT event, but seems harder to be an all snow event.
I'll do another blog updating these events PLUS giving some of guidelines on how to get the most of this blog. Share my blog on FB and Twitter-- it really helps. I'm adding Google ad sense so when you see something interesting click on an ad and it does pay me for my time. :)
I had thought about doing this sooner and likely should have.
Brief background:
Many of you have known me for years as I was born and raised in New Castle, DE. I moved away for college and never came back. I've lived in Lynchburg VA since 1996.
The weather hobby:
As a child, my goal was to become a TV weatherman. If you all remember Jim O'Brian from ABC in Philly was my hero and the poor guy died in parachute accident in 1983 ish. I was very good at math and science but really didn't know much about weather other than the guys on TV and the National Weather Service. Of all things, My blind father got me into weather.
At some point: I just became interested in other things. I'm not sure why but there were multiple factors. I think one issue surely was that I had a pretty intense stutter and figured that I could never do TV. Had I know the other opportunities, things could have been different. I actual did a 3 week intensive speech therapy program when I was 29 and it really changed my life. I looked back into Meteorology AFTER getting my Masters in Counseling and even knocking out part of my PhD. I did a large portion of an operational meteorology degree but never finished because I got married and had a child. :)
On an exciting note- I did cut a demo 3 years ago for a local TV station. The local guy had turned on to my blog and noted my skill. Honestly, the presentation was lousy because I had no experience on the green screen and the speech targets I use had some extra stress with me trying to do the clicking and pointing. With practice, I know I could have done 100x better. With that, if I can ever make a little money from this blog, I'd love to buy some software that would allow me to cut vidoes for these blogs.
So, this is a nice consolation prize. I try to update when big weather events are on the way and winter weather is clearly my favorite. With the advent of online writers getting weather gigs, maybe there is hope for something. At one point, I could name every big and small snowstorm from about 1980 or so and with age I've lost some of the smaller events but any big snow in Delaware between 1980 and 1993 or so I could tell you WAY too much information about it.
Active year so far after 2-3 lousy winters with Wilmington Airport having over 30 inches so far. A normal winter is around 20 inches, but normal has not been the rule for a while with either VERY big years or very small years.
Looking at the weekend--
The famous FB blizzard map that went viral isn't happening. If the jet streams had "phased" meaning worked together, a bigger event would have been possible. It seems the first piece comes through Saturday with a chance for snow, at this time more likely to coat the ground in Central and Southern Delaware and the second piece Sunday, more likely to coat the ground in Northern Delaware.
Another even is looming for Wednesday and Thursday. Anything 5-6 days away is harder to nail down finer details. We will have colder air in place, but slowly easy out as a low pressure comes out of the Gulf of Mexico. This usually means snow changing to ice then rain. There can still be a DECENT event, but seems harder to be an all snow event.
I'll do another blog updating these events PLUS giving some of guidelines on how to get the most of this blog. Share my blog on FB and Twitter-- it really helps. I'm adding Google ad sense so when you see something interesting click on an ad and it does pay me for my time. :)
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