Spring will come...

By the time next weekend comes around, winter with all its lingering shtuff will be long forgotten and Spring will take hold.  That's my hope.  I am ready for snow to be done.   And the models are going towards that.

For example, the GFS has this nice burnt umber colour positive temperature anomaly for our area next Sunday (map courtesy of Weatherbell).  In fact, the GFS has no below 0 C temperatures day 6 thru 10 in Ottawa.  Safe for the flowers to come now.  Perhaps.

Thursday's storm

There is still a lot of model uncertainty with respect to the track and timing of the storm on Thurs.  Pick any solution between the CGEM, GFS or ECMWF, it will still be messy.

The GFS solution is the fastest and most northern of the three.  The storm track in its solution has the storm center going over Lake Huron to just west of the Ottawa area by Thursday evening (map below).  This track and timing allows the storm to get ahead of the coldest air aloft, causing little snow for the Ottawa area, but more of a ice mix to rain.

The CGEM solution has the storm center sliding over Lake Erie to just south of Lake Ontario with a slower track. Thursday evening it has the storm over Lake Erie (map below).  This will give more snow and a brief mix of ice.

The ECMWF solution has the storm center going just south of the great lakes at a slower pace.  It has the storm over Ohio Thursday evening.  This give the Ottawa region mainly snow.  Sorry, can't show any Euro maps.

So is the GFS jumping the gun or is the ECMWF dragging it feet?   Will the CGEM come up the middle and be right for once?   Stay tuned to find out.



Maps courtesy of Weatherbell.

 
 
 

Sooo winter's not done

Potential of ugly storm Thurs this week, if Canadian and Euro models are correct.  The GFS is only slightly less ugly.

Hope to put a detailed post out this evening.

Mixed bag of weather this week

The first half of this week will be stormy and the last half clear and cool.  All maps courtesy of Weatherbell using the GFS model (most models are in fairly close agreement).

Storm # 1 tonight will bring a messy mix tonight of snow to ice pellets to freezing rain to rain back to snow tomorrow.  That sounds very familiar, doesn't it.

Storm # 2 is a weak clipper that will give us just a couple cms or so of snow Monday evening.

Storm # 3 is looking to be a bigger deal Tuesday night into Wednesday as system passes just south of the Great Lakes, giving us mostly frozen precipitation.  Preliminary snowday call for Wednesday.

After Wednesday's system an Arctic high settles in giving clear and cold conditions with overnight lows potentially getting into the -20s C (overnight low Friday morning shown).

Timing of this week's storm

The forecast track is slowly narrowing down to one that has the storm center pass over the lower Great Lakes on a NE course, passing just south of Ottawa.   If this holds, snow will begin late afternoon Wednesday.  By early morning Thursday, there will likely be a change to freezing rain to rain.  Up to 15-20 cms could accumulate before the change to rain.  By late Thursday, there will be a change back to snow.

Next week!

Mentioned a couple days ago on my Twitter feed that model output for next week Tuesday/Wednesday had a similar setup and storm as this week.   The storm is still there on the models in one form or another.  Look for firming of track and precip in the next couple days.

Snow amounts as of 6 PM

From Env. Can.
Below is a summary of snowfall amounts received as of 6 pm Tuesday:

Ottawa Airport 49 cm
Gatineau Airport 28 cm
Casselman 35 cm
Moose Creek 21 cm
Cornwall 20 cm
Brockville 25 cm
Kemptville 34 cm
Kingston Airport 30 cm
Trenton Airport 22 cm
Cobourg 13 cm
Welland 11 cm
St Catharines (on escarpment) 22 cm
Fort Erie 25 cm

Tomorrow's storm

Still on track for a big one. (maps courtesy of Weatherbell)

NAM:

RGEM

Models are lining up for Tuesday's snow...

The ECMWF is still on board with Tuesday snow (not allowed to show its map).  The maps shown are courtesy of Weatherbell.

The GFS:

The NAM:

The CGEM

Next Tuesday night...

As noted on my twitter feed, all the medium range models are now on board with the storm currently time late next Tuesday.  When the ECMWF backed away the storm to the east, CGEM and GFS jumped on board with the current track.  Then the next run of the Euro moved the storm back to even a further west track which I think will correct back again.  Even so here is the latest GFS.  Fun.