Written By: Scott HetskoOnce the cold air arrives Wednesday evening it will be sticking around for at least a week if not more. Progressively colder air will pour South from Eastern Canada this coming weekend. A coastal storm which will miss us with regard to widespread of (synoptic) snow will stall over Nova Scotia and help enhance snow off of the lakes next Monday and Tuesday.
While it is very early to be specific, I do expect Rochester's first prolonged lake effect snowfall of the season. This setup in the past has been quite favorable for Monroe, Wayne and Orleans Counties. Snow lovers who already quit on this Winter, perk up! It appears that you just might get some snow around here sooner rather than later! The only trouble is that this may hurt our chances at keeping snow around for Christmas. Let's worry about that later!
why would snow now, hurt chances for snow at Christmas? I know you mentioned something in your winter special about warmth in early December was a good sign for snow at Christmas. What is the relationship? Thanks for all of the info.
ReplyDeleteChances are that if we are cold and snowy early in the month, we may become warmer and wet later toward Christmas. Just the way two week cycles tend to operate
ReplyDeleteI read on a neighboring viewing area's blog that the setup for early next week is similar to that, prolonged event that occurred last January when Niagara Falls received 31" of snow off lake Ontario and Huron, and areas close to the lake shore from Rochester to Oswego got over 1 Ft of snow. I have the NWS's breakdown of that event pasted below. But my question is, do you agree that there are significant similarities are is that greatly overstated?
ReplyDeleteHere's the event. It was lake effect "daisy" from January 1-4, 2010.
http://www.erh.noaa.gov/buf/lakeffect/lake0910/d/stormsumd.html
The air associated with this upcoming event will likely NOT be as cold as Jan 1-4, 2010. There will still be 12" plus amounts along the lake shore if this pans out like I expect.
ReplyDeleteYet again we miss the synoptic snow.
ReplyDeleteTo the last poster...what county or town do you live in? I'm guessing it's somewhere outside of the lake effect prone areas, or you'd be more excited. Even if that low did give us its precip it wouldn't amount to what lake effect can do around these parts. I live just northeast of the city line near Irondequoit Bay. I don't care about the low not giving us its snow, I care more about the very moist, cyclonic flow that it will give us.
ReplyDeleteWith that said, however...Scott, do you think any of the low's synoptic snow will pivot down from the NE into our region? I know with last year's January 1-4 event there was precip that "backed in" from the region east of lake Ontario right into parts of Western new york.
In terms of it not being as cold as last year's event, I totally agree. But, lake Ontario will likely be 2-3 degrees celcius warmer this time than what it was January 1-4, 2010. Maybe that will help close the gap a bit between last year and this upcoming event when it comes to the temp difference between a mile up and the lake surface temp.
ReplyDeleteI have a question why isnt the NWS jumping up and down with this event... they keep saying Tug hill would get the significant accumulations... not rochester area?
ReplyDeleteYou might be thinking about the event about to impact the Buffalo and Watertown areas tomorrow afternoon? That's a totally seperate event from what may occur early next week.
ReplyDeleteThat's it...the lake effect I'm referring to in this blog is for next Monday and Tuesday.
ReplyDeleteI know but even for the event that is to take place next week they are just saying that short fetch would keep accumulations to a min see here:
ReplyDelete.LONG TERM /SATURDAY THROUGH TUESDAY/...
...
A TROUGH OVER NEW ENGLAND AND A FLAT RIDGE OVER THE UPPER GREAT
LAKES ON SATURDAY WILL KEEP A COLD NORTHWEST FLOW IN PLACE OVER THE
REGION. THIS SHOULD KEEP SOME LAKE SNOWS SOUTHEAST OF BOTH LAKES...
BUT A LOWER CAP AND A LESS FAVORABLE FETCH SHOULD KEEP SNOW ACCUMS
TO A MINIMUM. ELSEWHERE...PARTLY TO MOSTLY CLOUDY SKIES WILL YIELD
THE OCCASIONAL FLURRY WHILE TEMPERATURES WILL BE A FEW DEGREES BELOW
NORMAL.
...
that is just a portion from it
Here is the next paragraph and even it is not too excited about the lake snows
ReplyDeleteA STORM SYSTEM WELL SOUTHEAST OF NOVA SCOTIA SUNDAY MORNING IS
DEPICTED BY BOTH THE GFS AND ECMWF TO DEEPEN AND RETROGRADE BACK
ACROSS THE MARITIMES SUNDAY AFTERNOON AND NIGHT. THIS WILL INCREASE
THE NORTHWEST FLOW OVER OUR REGION WHILE ALSO STARING TO CIRCULATE A
WEALTH OF SYNOPTIC MOISTURE BACK ACROSS QUEBEC AND SOUTHEASTERN
ONTARIO. THIS SHOULD KEEP THE LAKE SNOWS GOING SOUTHEAST OF THE
LAKES WITH ALL OTHER AREAS HAVING THE POTENTIAL TO PICK UP SOME SNOW
SHOWERS AS WELL.
events that happen in watertown and buffalo get talked about all week long why not this event for us?
You'll see more conversation once Thursday/Friday comes around. It's only Tuesday and there is NO WAY to get into specific mesoscale components of this possible lake effect event.
ReplyDeleteI agree no need to jump the gun on where things will set up shop with the NW flow Mon night-tues... as we get closer You guys im sure will pinpoint the thread n needle.. but with this upcoming "P"otential lake snow it reminded me of a great question i had..im a huge fan of Yours Scott and i was very interested in the Jan.25-27, 2000 lake storm Eskimo. An excerpt straight from NWS Storm Summary said Quote "It seems to be most pronounced along the edge of a synoptic precipitation shield...cold advection...and cyclonic low level flow. Also, there is usually a deformation zone nearby. It's a great candidate for further research."
ReplyDeleteThis was set to have been underforcasted and my question is have they concluded recent studies that give reasons why this had occured.. This storm that goes up to Nova this wknd reminds me of this soo i wanted to know your input.. Thanks alot.
It's characteristic of The National Weather Service to "play it cool" this far in advance. They're always very cautious to get too deep into specifics or use any "exciting" verbage when describing events more than a 2 or 3 days in advance. Their forecast discussions are quite informative in general, but it goes back to what Scott pointed out about computer models. You should view things beyond several days out as "trends" rather than exact forecasts. And also, you have to consider that the NWS is responsible for an area from Jamestown, NY to Watertown, NY. That's a huge area. They also have to cover things like aviation forecasts, as well as marine forecasts. And right now, the NWS is dealing with a potentially major lake effect snow event near Buffalo beginning Wednesday afternoon. Not to mention they just got done with a high wind event along the lake Erie shore line early Tuesday, and also have to keep up on flooding along area streams and rivers. They're busy folks and don't have that big of a staff.
ReplyDeleteHey Weather guys :)Scott, Brian, and Bob...Thanks so much for all you do!
ReplyDeleteIt's probably already been asked...but how much snow would we have gotten had this been a snow event instead of rain? And the rain rain rain came down down down... (Winnie the Pooh fan :D )
A standard ratio for rain to snow is for every 1 inch of rain we can see 10 inches of snow. As of 9am the Greater Rochester International Airport had 1.35" of rain so based on the above ratio we would have 13.5".
ReplyDeleteThis ratio is not true in all or even most situations so if we did have snow with all this moisture it probably would have been a heavy snow so I think it would be less like 8 to 10 inches.
Boy the flakes are BIG this morning. This wet snow will fall for a few hours so I wouldn't be shocked if 1-3" of slush accumulated through early this afternoon. Brian will keep you updated I'm sure. Roads may become slick with how quickly the snow is falling.
ReplyDeleteScott Hetsko
Watching the snow here and getting reports across twitter. Watching some of the ground turn white. Will have to see what affect the warmer ground plays with accumulation but expect temperatures to fall into the low 30s which should help with accumulations and slick spots.
ReplyDeleteI've also seen reports of road crews putting salt and other agents on the road this morning
Ahhh, just a taste of things to come next week!
ReplyDeleteLooking at cams just to our west (where the cold air filtered in earlier) there is a pretty good snow accumulation on grassy areas as nearby as LeRoy. We'll see if that's any indication of what's to come later here.
ReplyDeleteLake Effect is quite widespread across the western great lakes and now there are hints of the LES embedded with synoptic funnelling up lake Erie. Any chance that LES will make it here later this evening?
ReplyDeleteSeems like nothing is sticking where i'm located in Irondeqouit. I wonder if the timing of the snow when there is solar radiation is keeping us from sticking as much as to our west where it started before sunrise.
ReplyDeleteOK scratch that last post. Snow IS sticking finally!
ReplyDeleteI will try to update here when I can but look for all of our updates on the main weather page of RochesterHomepage.net
ReplyDeleteThanks
What a snowy day this is turning out to be. It may not be a ton, but it's refreshing to see some real accumulating snow finally!
ReplyDeleteStill looking like next Monday or Tuesday could be an interesting two days of weather. What are the models saying according to our weather experts? What I am reading says it could be bad but I am not an expert at reading all the models.
ReplyDeleteI'm not an expert by any means, so I'll let the pros do their analysis. But I just looked at the latest 12z GFS model, and it still looks good for a cold, moist, cyclonic flow for several days - maybe even beyond Tuesday. The GFS today looks even colder than last night's run for much of next week with almost a constant NW wind.
ReplyDeleteSnow totatls... lets hear emm?? half an inch in Webster!! with a heavier burst of snow in the last half an hour it was enough to begin to cover the roads..the grass was already accumulating the snow.. i guess my only question is being that its noontime will the sun's angle limit the snow or since its dec. 1 will that snow stick as if it were night time? tis the Season regardless:)
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of Snow Totals I did a new post today so if you go to the newest post and put your amounts there and if you like email us your photos too.
ReplyDeleteWell today proves weather is not an exact science! Not one forecaster predicted the snow we have seen in the heart of Rochester the last 4 hours. Everyone said a great deal of rain will fall.
ReplyDelete