Saturday, February 20, 2010

It's time to get a little bold and predict a huge week of powder at MRG !!!

It will take some time to evolve but the potential has never been bigger this winter season and by the end of this week will either be camping out at MRG for first tracks or very let down if somehow things fail to come together again. It is a very complex weather situation and for a while it will be a disorganized one and the latter can certainly lead to some anxious moments. The SCWB is all about fun though and would like to try and rise to the challenge rather than hide from it.

As the weather remains quiet and even mild as the weekend wraps up, a storm system will move from the south-central Plains toward eastern Great Lakes spreading snow in a swatch from Kansas to Chicago to Ontario. This system will head northeast with some initial steam but gradually lose strength, speed and cohesiveness in Canada as it encounters the jet stream blocking at the higher latitudes. As this happens however, a large upper trough will descend upon the eastern United States allowing the right ingredients of cold weather across the middle of the country and relative warmth across the Atlantic to ripen the situation for storm development along the east coast. All indications suggest this will happen but the jury is out as to how explosive this development is. As of noon on Saturday, we did see some lose agreement amongst the major computer models to allow a system to form in the vicinity of the Delmarva Peninsula during the middle of the week, move northeast, and then boomerang back into New England as the upper trough evolves into the "bowling ball" we all hope it becomes. There are few impulses rotating through the above mentioned upper air feature and its difficult to be anymore specific except to say that a storm may very well stall in eastern New England and allow a conveyor of moisture from the Atlantic to invariably deposit snow across the Vermont high country for days. That would certainly be my plan if I had any control of it but its far too early make guarantees although it is very nice to see some hard evidence suggesting such an outcome.

In terms of timing, a decaying area of moisture from the weakening storm in the eastern Great Lakes should arrive late on Tuesday and bring some powder for the ski day Wednesday. Any such snow in this time frame will be nice but snowfall from the developing storm along the Atlantic coast (what we hope becomes a full fledged nor’easter) comes later Wednesday and hopefully continues through the end of the week and into the weekend. All I can say is that such an outcome would make for an unbelievable turnaround for much of Vermont ski country and could turn a month that has been remembered for its "Styrofoam" to a month remembered for its "finish".

There are plenty of ways to botch this developing weather situation. Anytime a storm strengthens, stalls and then occludes, warm air from the Atlantic can wrap itself around the northern flank of the storm and actually change snow to something other than snow (we will not mention this word). Storms that occlude are often laced with pockets of dry air which allow for elongated periods where no snow is falling. The storm could also fail to come together at all while the moisture initial eastern Great Lakes dies its slow death and thus allowing the great MRG 2010 snow shield to work its black magic. Fundamentally however, if the storm does indeed stall and occlude, it will be the Vermont high country which will benefit the most. Occlusions are characterized by winds at varying levels of the troposphere aligning directionally and thus making precipitation (amount and type) very sensitive to elevation. I will therefore not at all be surprised to see some surprisingly low snowfall totals across both the Champlain and Upper Valley's while the huge totals come in across both the Green and White mountains of Vermont and New Hampshire.

It is a very exciting situation to say the least. I know we have had a few that haven’t quite played out according to plan but we have to keep calling them like we see them and this one is the best I have seen through the winter season to date.

9 comments:

Nathan Doudera said...

I've got a partial!

Luis Bango said...

Keeping my fingers crossed down here at Suicide 6.

JD Dimo said...

c'mon you storm, you! frickin' ay - we NEED this one!

Unknown said...

please, oh, please, let this happen!

Unknown said...

Clock is right twice a day....while this storm looks like a lock I noticed you failed to make a real forecast on amounts again. Hopefully despite all your busts this year we'll actually get 1 big storm.

Have a good day sir

Joshua Fox said...

I am glad your still reading the blog Jeff

Michael Carr - Veritas Literary said...

@Jeff - Let's be fair. Josh is far from the only one who missed that last storm. He was reading the same data as everyone else and coming to similar conclusions. It was quite disappointing to get nothing, but it's not like he was making stuff up just to mess with us.

adampizer said...

You consistently do the best weather analysis and explain it in a way that's understandable and enjoyable to read. Keep up the great work!

Eric said...

and to be more fair Josh is pretty consistently been the most accurate forecaster out there, including the NOAA and this is just his blog, not a staff of full time forecasters who miss more often then call it right. Nobody calls the weather weeks in advance besides best ski weather and it costs several thousand for that privledge nowadays. We know its not an exact science, and you cant always been perfect. I look forward to these blogs coming out all winter long
Eric