CHRISTMAS DAY, LESS ICE, MAINLY RAIN
Written by: Brian Neudorff
Not much has really changed since Bob and I posted our thoughts on the Christmas Day forecast yesterday. When your dealing with the threat of possible icy conditions your always fine tuning the forecast. I imagine I will still be tweaking timing, temperatures as well as location on any freezing rain tomorrow morning.
The above graphic is an hourly precipitation forecast from the NAM. It kind of works the way Bob mentioned about the BUFKIT as it also shows us precipitation type and on coolwx.com you can also see other cross sections like vertical temperature profiles. The trend over the last 24 to 48 hours is to bring the rain in later and later in the day Christmas. This benefits most of western New York. By the time the rain arrives between 2 and 4 pm the surface temperatures should be above freezing somewhere in the mid 30s, but there are some I have seen that are very close to the freezing mark.
If you do plan on traveling locally on Christmas, morning looks like the best time now and even around noon. Later Christmas night the farther east you go, say around Syracuse or Albany things look like they could be icy. Just make sure you check the area forecasts around where you will be traveling if you are heading out tomorrow.
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all of you who read our blog. Thank you for adding so much to the conversation over the last month or two. I will be updating the forecast tomorrow morning and if I have time and see something I will try and do a weather blog post. If not Bob Metcalfe will have one tomorrow afternoon.
I hope I am wrong, but I have been watching this forecast from several different weather stations, and I believe we will be seeing more ice than what you guys are predicting. It has been so cold since December 15th, that I believe the cold air at the surface will not have enough time to escape before the rain arrives tomorrow afternoon. I wouldn't be surprised that this could turn out to be a mini ice storm for Christmas.
ReplyDeleteI doubt it. This is a powerful storm and the warm air advetion will be strong. I doubt we see much ice at all. Mainly rain. Boring, boring, boring. No storms in the horizon. Just a few lake effect flurries and cold. Boring!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteStill if we receive a lot of rain, and the ground frozen, wouln't this lead to loacalized flooding?
ReplyDeleteWe won't get a big snowstorm here in ROC until April. Guaranteed.
ReplyDelete