Very Early Look at Sunday’s Storm.

It’s way early and I’d probably not even blog about this so soon…but. I have seen 2 runs of the reliable long range EURO model and a few runs of the GFS along with Canadian model. All of which are in somewhat agreement(rare) which makes me want to dig a little deeper. The fact that the EURO model started picking up on this storm first makes me take it a even tad more serious than if the GFS developed another “phantom” storm.

Also worth noting is the fact that both the pattern and track this low takes is a more ideal track for a winter storm in the southeast and Mid-Atlantic, so it does bear watching more closely. Plus honestly it’s nice for the first time this winter to have some legitimate reason to watch a storm and use some winter weather forecasting skills. Lets take a look at the model data for Sunday on the various models.

ECMWF:

This model has done the best this winter..again, so lets take a closer look. It shows a track very close to the coast even slightly inland which brings the warm air inland as well. This means big snows for the foothills and mountains. Any slight deviation could bring the heavier snows down into the piedmont. Central Virginian gets hammered in this scenario.

6 hour Snowfall from the ECMWF starting 4am Sunday:

Analogs:

This a very cool technique that I have used over the last several winters. This takes the current model data and looks back at history, to see what happened with a similar set-up in the atmosphere. The one drawback is it uses the current GFS data but at least you get an idea of the scenarios based on similar storm position, strength and track.

So based on the GFS here’s what the forecasted snowfall would be based on these analog storms. The #1 analog storm was from February 12-13, 2010.

Analog Snowfall Forecast:

Analog Chances of 4” of snow:

Analog Chances of 2” of snowfall:

Brad’s Bottom Line:

It’s early….but the position of the storms the track and pattern all point to someone on the east coast getting some good snow. I’d put the chances of accumulating snow east of the mountains at around 30% right now. The mountains will get maybe the biggest storms of the season so far. Which could not have come at a better time. This is Presidents Day weekend a huge ski weekend and the conditions should be perfect. Just stay tuned as always and remember a lot can change by the weekend because the track is so close any small changes will have big impacts on the outcome.