Posted by Dave Longley, 10:30 AM Wednesday, 11/28/2007
I knew that would get you reading! Seriously, some factors are coming together that could produce the biggest accumulation of snow this season yet. Of course, we're dealing with lake effect, which means localized snow, so not everyone is going to get snow and wind direction will play a big part in where the bands set up. So, how do we get there?
Low pressure now moving into the Upper Midwest this morning, will continue to move east. We'll enjoy a quiet day here, with clouds increasing this evening around here. Remember, around low pressure, winds rotate counter-clockwise, which means our winds will swing around to the south tonight ahead of this low. Temperatures early in the night will drop into the mid 20s, then we expect temperatures to start rising toward Thursday morning.
We have some snow in there for late tonight. None of the computer models we use to write the forecast have any precipitation in here, but I've been burned the past few weeks in arrival time of precipitation when surges of warm air are headed our way. It's entirely possible that temperatures could warm enough so that when we finally do see precipitation around here Thursday morning, it could fall as rain.
That won't last long. A strong cold front will blast through here midday tomorrow, with a second, strong front arriving early tomorrow night. That will change the rain to snow. There will be a lot of wind with this change to cold tomorrow.
We'll be cold enough for lake effect by tomorrow afternoon. The average lake temperature as of this past Sunday was around 47 which means we need temperatures around 20 degrees at 5000 feet for lake effect. We'll be there after 1 tomorrow afternoon. We should see some lake effect develop over Lake Ontario tomorrow afternoon.
Now as to where it sets up. Current indications are that we're going to see a west-southwest wind in the lower atmosphere over us, so that would mean lake snows will primarily affect the counties east of Lake Ontario. Some light snows could come affect the eastern Finger Lakes and Syracuse area, but they'd be off of Lake Erie.
Thursday night, we may see the lake snows off of Lake Ontario shift a bit farther southward, closer to Syracuse, but that should only be temporary. During the day Friday, winds will once again shift to a more southwesterly direction, pushing the lake snows back to the north up near Watertown dor much of the day Friday.
By Saturday, winds are forecast to become more northwesterly, and this will shift the lake snows southward closer to the eastern Finger Lakes and Syracuse area.
That's the quick capsule on the events over the next couple of days. The National Weather Service has already posted Lake Effect Snow Watches for the counties east of Lake Ontario for Thursday and Friday because of what I outlined above.
Feel free to comment on anything, I love the interaction. Also, if you have any questions on lake effect snow, post them here. I frequently check back and will be happy to chime in.
