Friday, December 14, 2012

Hello My Friends, We Meet Again

Or, as Alice Cooper sings.... "Hello, Hooray!"


Yes, Hello, Hooray, we finally have some weather to track!It has been a dull 6 weeks. Temperatures in the 60's, hanging christmas lights in shorts is not how things are supposed to be. First, I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving and for my Jewish readers, I hope your season has been festive and merry. Everyone else, T minus 10 days!

So, on to the weather. After a very quiet and warm 6 weeks, things are going to be changing. The overall weather pattern is going to be changing. We are going to have a line of storms starting early week next week and continuing for the next week or two. Yes, we will have chances for storms over the next two weeks, but will that equate to snow? This is the big question. As many of you know, the biggest storms we can get have to have a few ingredients. We need an overall pattern which allows for coastal development, and keeping it close enough to the coast to bring precipitation. We need to have a 50/50 low (a low pressure at 50 latitude  50 longitude) to "block" or severely slow down any storms coming up the coast, and acts to keep them along the coast. We also need cold air, so we need a moderate high pressure set up over eastern Canada which will allow cold air to come into the area. These are the main features, although there are a number of others as well.

While we have a line of storms stacking up, it is going to be interesting to see how these storms play out. Models have been all over the place. They have shown a number of solutions, often wildly different only hours apart. Why you may ask, good question. As I said, a number of issues come into play. Yes, we may have a coastal storm, it may bring us rain. This is okay though. As part of the overall pattern, we need to get a 50/50 low, which any coastal low pressure can do. So, we may have storm #1 bring us rain, but as long as it can get to 50/50 we are good (one part of the equation). So, storm #1 could potentially become the 50/50 low to block storm #2 and then whatever happens with storm #2 will effect storm #3. Its confusing, but think of it has a toll booth along the highway. A very progressive pattern (which we have been in) is like using the EZ pass lanes. The pattern we are changing too is like using the old school tool booth collectors. Its not as fast and sometimes the lines back up.

So, long story short, I see a storm coming for  early next week, which at this point, I think is going to be rain. I am hoping that this storm can get up to become the 50/50 low because a couple days later we could be looking at another developing coastal storm! And then there is even a chance, long range, of something popping around Christmas. So, buckle up and enjoy the ride. As always, follow me on twitter @townerswxpage and on facebook Towner's Weather PAGE. spread the word, always love to have new followers! Rapid updates will be put out on twitter/facebook and more in depth discussion will be done on my blog page (which ends up on twitter and facebook as well)




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