A rare snowstorm in the deep south brought record snows to north Texas yesterday and overnight, with a snowfall of 32 cm in Dallas, their all time heaviest 24 hr snowfall on record. This storm comes two days after the US east coast was blasted by a record setting blizzard, its second storm in less than 5 days that left snow up to 3 feet deep in places. So it's been a stormy snowy week over the southern and and eastern US, with comparisons to the stormy weather pattern of February 1978 that brought record blizzards and snowfall to the East Coast.Meanwhile on the opposite coast, it's the rain that's the main weather story, as the Winter Olympics begin in Vancouver. A series of strong Pacific weather systems will come onshore over the weekend bringing plenty of rain, low cloud and fog to the west Coast. The precipitation will fall as snow over higher elevations, but low clouds and heavy snow will make for very poor visibilities and ski conditions. All in all, looks like a wet gloomy start to the 2010 Winter Olympics. For Olympic Games weather information, consult EC's 2010 Olympic weather page as well as their online weather briefing website. Environment Canada is the official provider of weather forecast information for the 2010 games (see story).
Thanks for the LINK, ROB, Interesting and informative EC site.
ReplyDeleteJim
Another 70mm of rain for Squamish today! Isn't this supposed to be the Winter Olympics?
ReplyDeleteI thought that snowfall system over Manitoba last night was interesting. It appeared out of the north and moved down into the Portage area and then just stopped and hung out there for hours. Even this morning its still there and appears to now be moving slowly to the south west.
ReplyDeleteYes.. that area of snow basically pivoted around an upper low and inverted surface trof to our west. Snowfall amounts overnight were higher than I expected out west.. with 14 cm in Brandon, 16 cm in McCreary and up to 20 cm in Rivers just northwest of Brandon. Snowfall rates of 1-2 cm/hr at times for a good 12 hours under those slow moving bands resulting in 5-10 mm liquid pcpn in a 15:1 to 20:1 snow:water ratio environment.
ReplyDeletesame upper low dropped into north dakota this morning with midnight to noon snow totals showing 6 to 12 inches in a narrow band from bottineau and rollette to just west of devils lake...got a 12 inch report from maddock near noontime. very very localized though. when it snowed it was 1/8sm vsby and large flakes accounting for rapid accum.
ReplyDeleteThis upcoming week looks very nice!
ReplyDeleteAverage temperatures and lots of sun!
Break out the sun tan lotion!
Looking at 00z-06z GFS I see some signal for a storm system to enter the cntrl or nrn plains toward march 2-3rd....the very last panels at 384 hrs. I realize this far out is a crap shoot....but interesting to see if signal remains as we get closer in time. Our local climate person at office says there has been a signal for some type of storm around March 4th....we will see
ReplyDeleteYeah... pattern reverts back to split flow more characteristic of el nino by early next week (feb 22), allwoing disturbances to move in off the Pacific (mainly south of us at first). That deep upper trough that consolidates off the west coast and large upper ridge over central N America (almost an omega block type pattern) definitely looks interesting 0.o
ReplyDeleteTemperature trends will be dependent on cloud cover, as the we are brushed by high clouds (backing in) from departing disturbance - and from clouds associated with next upper low dropping south by week's end. Disturbance crossing the Alberta rockies merges with evolving cold pool over N Prairies producing closed 500 hPa low. This feature drops south thru Alberta/Saskatchewan and curves toward US midwest. At the same time, the strengthening February sun is starting to cause a large disparity in temps to build up between RRV tundra vs forested areas and cities/towns.
As noted on the NWS discussion each of these lows has been dropping down further west so maybe this pattern has in fact reached some 'tipping point' where we flip back to a more active flow. Upper vortex over arctic archipelago consolidates in extended while upper high over Greenland weakens or shifts east so AO will possibly start getting less negative (from -5 right now).
That strengthening sun is starting to have a noticeable effect on urban vs rural temperatures, as Daniel was noting. -10C at Winnipeg airport as of 2 pm, but a full 5 degrees warmer at the Forks downtown, with a few private stations in the south end of Winnipeg up to -3C. My station is now recording solar radiation up to about 500 W/m2 now, which is about the same strength as October sunshine. You can definitely feel that sun getting stronger!
ReplyDeleteThanks Rob! That explains everything. My thermometer isn't broken after all =Þ. Didn't make sense to have temps 5-7C warmer than the airport.
ReplyDeleteI saw some snow melting today on concrete which was out in bright sunshine. This despite the fact that the high temperature in Steinbach was only -8C.
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