Snow on track for Tuesday into Wednesday
Monday, December 30, 2013
The latest model runs have thrown some uncertainty into the short term forecast, especially for Wednesday morning, as one of the American models have brought the last wave for Wednesday morning across the area stronger than earlier forecast. What is more certain, however, is that there will be two main periods of snow occurring around mid-morning Tuesday and again after midnight Tuesday, with much lighter snow or even a break later Tuesday afternoon into the evening.
My gut feeling is to believe the snowier solution, so I might expect 6-12” by Wednesday afternoon for both storms. The lack of cold air will limit accumulations during the day Tuesday so that only 2-4” are expected by sunset, with an additional 4-8” early Wednesday morning into the early afternoon.
Snow showers will end Wednesday evening and mountain slopes should warm for Thursday and Friday with periods of sun. Another storm approaches the area for the weekend and light snow should begin again Friday night. Forecasts from a week ago had this wave heralding a pattern change to very cold temperatures, however current model trends keep this wave progressive and limit snowfall to only light amounts by Saturday morning with seasonably cool air.
It appears the sun returns later Saturday into Sunday morning as the west coast ridge rebuilds, forcing the storminess to our east. There is a lot of forecast uncertainty after that as the Gulf of Alaska ridge is forecast to either break down or be undercut by westerly Pacific flow for a period of time.
