Forecasting Kitsap

Archive for December 9th, 2009

Major Snowstorm/Cold or Back to Normal?: Confusion in the Weather Model World

Wednesday, December 9th, 2009

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UPDATED 8:57 PM

Ehhh…not too much to get excited about looking at this evenings model runs. Better than the last set of runs, but still not stellar. I think the general consensus is to keep things pretty dry around here until later Saturday into Sunday which is when we *might* see some snowfall. If we get any precipitation during this time, I am very confident it would be snow, the trouble is…where are we going to get it from? It’s just going to be too darn dry.

After a few rain/snow showers Sunday into Monday it looks like a repeat performance of what we went through in November. Wet and mild. Although it is looking increasingly unlikely, I am going to continue to track the models to see if they revert back to a more dramatic weather scenario for this weekend/next week. Best bet now? Don’t get your hopes up too high…we just might manage a snowless arctic outbreak! That combo is very rare.

Sweet dreams!

Matthew Leach

Forecasting Kitsap

Questions? Comments? E-mail me at: forecastingkitsap@live.com

7 DAY FORECAST

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UPDATED: 4:55 PM

Just a brief post right now…

I’ll be updating this blog post at around 9:00 PM or so this evening. Todays models have shown many dramatic solutions for this weekend and next week. For example:

–Absolutely no rain or snow this weekend/early next week.

–Major snowstorm (especially Hood Canal area) Sunday-Monday and maybe overlapping into Tuesday.

–Rain/snow Saturday through Tuesday with periods of decent, wet accumulation.

–Dry all weekend, rainy and breezy Monday and Tuesday.

–Dry until late next week (A much more typical El Nino solution, actually)

And then, to make this even more complicated, the 12z GFS model run showed another artcic blast early next week with highs back down into the 20s for most of Western WA. The 18z GFS, the most recent model run, has completely 180′d: mild and dry.

Not sure what to think right now so I won’t make any stabs in the dark until this evening’s model solutions come out. My personal bias? Obviously a major snowstorm, but hey…can’t always get what I want