Winter's Last Stand

Come on, this is getting to be excessive. Here we are on the last day of March, just looking for a little Spring weather. Instead I have to talk about the potential for a Monday morning rush hour storm that could hit Central Ohio. Then how about a couple more chances of snow during the week? Winter won't end quietly.

Tonight a weak front will sweep across the area, bringing showers and nothing more. Ahead of the front today we'll actually have some pretty gusty winds. Usually when we have a setup like this, there's a big storm coming. Well, it won't be coming tonight, but what we have to worry about is back in the Rockies:

By Sunday Night in to Monday morning, that Rockies disturbance will flourish as it races across the country and will hit the cold air left behind from this evening's cold front. Snow is likely, but again we're talking about an April snow here so accumulation will be minimal and more than likely won't cause huge issues:

This will be a light to moderate snow, but we could see 2"+ on grassy surfaces where ever this ends up dropping the heaviest.

We'll see a pretty quick warmup Monday afternoon and Tuesday, with more Spring-like temps and rain, before the chance at some backside flurries after a front Wednesday morning.

And then...

Yeah, we have the chance at one more accumulating snow next Saturday:

I'm paying a little closer attention to this one than I am Monday's storm, simply because of the setup for heavy precip. Notice in the image above that we have a pretty tight pressure gradient? That's because this storm is threading the needle between two high pressure systems (northwest and southeast in the Atlantic). That should squeeze the storm and bring a stronger system than we even see here. This is a week out, so all I'm showing this image for is to show there's potential there.

I'll keep an eye on all of these systems in the days to come and post again if either of them look to have a chance to be more than a minor inconvenience.

More Spring-Like Week

How about that snow storm on Saturday? Ok, so it passed south of Central Ohio, but the story of the storm was that sharp gradient from inches to nothing in terms of accumulation.

Of course one of the most famous pictures of the storm came from an airplane, showing the haves and have nots over Indiana:

Cincinnati got snow. But just north of Cincinnati got nothing.

I get the feeling that might have been winter's last stand. Looking ahead we have one last cold blast coming in at the beginning of April and then in comes Spring.

Before the permanent transition to Spring we get a little preview this week in the form of rain. There's a good chance of showers every day this week, all the way in to the weekend.

Model estimates have at least 2-3" through Friday, with more possible over the weekend:

A front will be nearly stationary over our area for the next several days. What saves us from a flooding situation is the scattered nature of the showers. As long as this stays true, we should just see wet conditions, not flooding.

Even though I love winter and snow, I think it's time for some storms and warmth!

FIRST LOOK: Saturday Snow "Event"

Yeah, I got snarky with the title and put "event" in quotes. Why? Because at this point we're at the end of March and any snow storms have to be the perfect storm to bring us more than snowy grass and wet streets. And guess what? Saturday won't be that perfect storm.

This is a northern Plains low that'll eject from the Kansas area and take a pretty flat path toward Kentucky before diving south toward the Georgia coast. All the precip will be on the northern side, and it won't be all that wet considering it's not tapping the Gulf.

I already don't like this system, but go on...

It's going to bring daytime snow.

Ok, you can leave now.

That's all I need to hear. It's a clipper-like Plains low with diurnal precip. This thing won't do a bit of  real damage. Even if we got a direct hit from it, worst case scenario is another snowy lawn situation like we had Wednesday. BUT...

...it's a miss.

Yeah, there it goes, diving south of us. Any chance we had of even just getting a dusting on Saturday is slowly slipping south, down by the Ohio River.

If you have any interests in Cincinnati on Saturday afternoon, maybe it'll be a pretty winter-like scene down there, but even then I wouldn't worry about major road impacts.

We all know models can change, and we still have 48 hours for all major models to flop around again, but with nothing in the pipeline before this storm, I don't think we'll see much change. Even if it does move further north, I can see a dusting on the grass being the biggest impact.

I'll update tomorrow with a final forecast.

SUMMARY: March 20th-21st Snow

Swing and a miss. What else can I say? It looked like we would be squarely on the northwest quadrant of this low, putting Central Ohio in the best position for a decent accumulation, and instead the low came far enough in to Ohio that the best hit Western Ohio. I'd hinted at model guidance shifting that way yesterday morning, and sure enough that's what happened.

Check the snow totals:

The snow that did fall was of little impact to the morning commute. In fact I think I only saw a couple delays in the Central Ohio area.

This was a real bust. We've had some storms this year that dropped less than advertised, but this one totally shifted less than 12 hours before it began.

For snow lovers I think we have another legitimate shot at snow on Saturday. I'll write about that soon!

LiveBlog: First Day of Spring SNOW

11:02am
This morning's icing has come and gone. As expected I didn't see any real slow downs on the roads, but some ice did glaze the trees. I saw a couple posts online of icicles forming on webcams, but I didn't get lucky enough to see that in my weather cam timelapse. However as I sit at my desk and look out the window, I did see a pretty rapid melt when our temp got above 32° at 9:30am.

We're almost to 35° right now, and the higher we rise, the longer it'll be before the changeover to snow this evening.

I've seen some ridiculous snow totals forecasted already today. Unfortunately I believe a lot of people saw snow models and thought that was a forecast. As I said yesterday, those will not be accurate because of melting.

For snow lovers I'm seeing a trend in the HRRR that worries me. It has the low developing and moving a lot closer to us than originally expected. This snapshot from 2am is a lot further west than expected. By as much as 50-100 miles:

The red circled area is very warm, upper 30s. I was expecting a full changeover by 11pm, so if we're still this warm by 2am this could put a huge dent in totals. If this verifies, I would push my entire snowfall map about 60 miles north. And it's not just the short range meso models picking up on this, the NAM has the heaviest snow totals pushing all the way in to Indiana now, with changeover happening much sooner there. If this warm pocket moves in with the low in to southern Ohio, our snow event may become a total bust here in Central Ohio.

I'll update later with what I hope will be better news.

3:01pm
This is why you don't model chase. Now the HRRR has shifted colder again. In fact if you believed the simulated radar, a good chunk of Central Ohio would be getting very heavy snow around 2am:

I don't discount this solution, but I still think there's some merit to the warmer models from earlier.

Honestly at this point it'll be a nowcast situation. To figure out what's going on I see that temps have now leveled out for the day at 40°. So how soon does it drop? How fast does it drop? We've had N/NE winds all day, when do those shift out of the NW? Until then we're still due north of the circulation and too warm for any changeover at all.

We're still a few hours from sunset and the onset of any precip at all. Now we watch.

8:21pm
Remember that earlier HRRR snapshot I shared earlier showing rain and 38 degrees at 2am? While it seemed to depict the warm pocket pretty well, it did not nail the temp. Here we are after 8pm and I just dropped a couple tenths below 35, with snow mixing in across the area:

The margin is thin from rain to snow right now. The areas to the north and in eastern Fairfield County that are snowing right now are only a couple hundred feet in elevation from what most of Franklin and Pickaway Counties are. That tells me it won't be long until this warm pocket of rain changes over. That's when the accumulation starts.

UPDATE: Decent Storm Probable Tuesday to Wednesday

Last night's post talked about the potential for a storm Tuesday in to Wednesday. With each model run leading up to this evening, the threat has become more and more real. As I said, it's a two part system, so lets take it one piece at a time:

Tuesday Morning
I didn't think Tuesday morning would be a serious threat to Central Ohio, and I still think that'll be the case. Western Ohio could be a different story, as I think they cool down enough overnight tonight to support a long duration freezing rain event, even a little past sunrise. However, I don't think we drop below freezing until right around sunrise, and even then it'll only be areas north of I-71.

It'll be another I-71 divide for tomorrow morning, but I don't think those of us south of the freezing line will complain about missing out on ice.

After sunrise, any frozen surfaces should melt pretty quickly. As I said yesterday, that March sun angle is just too high to allow a thin layer of ice to stick around for more than an hour.

Tuesday in to Wednesday
Don't be surprised if by the tail end of our first piece of energy on Tuesday that we see a changeover to mixed precip or even snow. That'll be short lived as the disturbance pulls away and leaves us with a lull for a few hours. But by rush hour tomorrow night we should see snow moving in again. It should start light and even possibly mixed before sunset. It's after sunset Tuesday night that we'll really get things kicking. Probably by midnight we should be in moderate to sometimes heavy snow. This is a perfect timing sort of thing, as we wouldn't be seeing this kind of snow event if it were the middle of the day.

A reinforcing shot of cold air will move in Tuesday evening and help enhance the upper level low. Even on simulated radar early Wednesday morning to can almost pick out the swirl of the low:

Now, how many of you have looked at computer models and saw some high end snow totals? I really hope no one took those to heart. If this were January, yeah, I might buy it. But some of this snow will melt on contact, not even sticking around on a snow board for accurate measurement. We may see a decent amount of snow fall from the sky, but don't expect it all to accumulate. And especially don't expect to see it around on the roads much past mid-morning on Wednesday.

While this is an impactful storm because of the time of year, it won't be a blockbuster that we talk about for years to come. Stay home tomorrow night and ride it out, and by later Wednesday everyone should be able to travel.

Forecasted Snow Totals

I won't rule out a couple pockets getting more than 4" out of this. We're going to have a deformation band setup somewhere, and with the general motion of this storm it could rotate over the same area for a couple hours.

I also don't think it's going to be easy to measure this storm, either. I'll be out there every couple hours to get a good idea of what we're getting and what we aren't getting, but melting will make this difficult.

We're all under a Winter Weather Advisory right now, but I wouldn't be surprised to see some warnings in counties between Columbus and Cincinnati if this thing sets up in the right place.

Since this will hopefully be our last storm of the season, I'll LiveBlog this tomorrow. Get ready for some snow!

Potential Midweek Snow

Today was an absolutely beautiful late Winter day. Highs in the upper 50s and sunny skies kind of made you forget that we're below normal on temps for the month. That is, until you look ahead on the 7 day forecast and see we have two potential snow storms coming.

Let's take the first one first. Tuesday in to Wednesday we could see accumulating snow. I'm not talking about the quick hitting squalls we've been seeing lately, but a legitimate storm. I see this as a two part storm:

Tuesday Morning
The first low moves in Monday Night in to Tuesday and there's a chance we could start out with some mixed precip Tuesday Morning. Not a huge threat and probably won't be very disruptive considering this hits us after sunrise:

I think the Euro underplays the potential for snow and sleet Tuesday morning, but I think this will be something to watch. Again, I don't think it becomes a major force Tuesday, but who knows? I think we'll have a better idea by this time tomorrow.

Tuesday Night in to Wednesday
This is where we could be in for some snowfall. With it being mid to late a March, sun angles are comparable to ealy October right now. That means it would take a really big storm to get daytime accumulations. What this second part of the storm has working for it is overnight precipitation. Not only does this avoid the suns rays melting things on contact, but lower non-diurnal temps. This is a trailing low that won't be quite a strong as Tuesday Morning's low, but has timing working for it:

I don't think models are going to do a good job of depicting the intensity of the snowfall because of the earlier system kind of clouding the dynamics. This could be a last second call on snowfall amounts, just because we really may not know how big this could be until the first system moves out.

As of now I think we're pretty set for an accumulating snow event, but I'm not ready to put a number on it. It won't be a monster, so don't expect double digit snow totals, but it'll definitely accumulate.

I'll be posting updates as we get closer!

VIDEO: Timelapse Snow Squall

While I didn't get my drone in to a snow squall yesterday, I was able to get it up and take a timelapse of an approaching squall. The first part of the video is from my drone, the second part is the same time frame from my roof.

What I love about this is the way a little snow shower can look like an approaching thunderstorm. Just incredible. Many areas over the past 24+ hours have seen multiple rounds of snow squalls bringing near whiteout conditions. We should be done with the snow for a while, but it sure was fun to watch while it lasted.

More Snow Squalls Tonight and Tuesday Night

If you liked my post yesterday about the crazy late season snow squalls in Central Ohio, then you'll have a chance to witness them up close again tonight and tomorrow. Nothing in terms of accumulation is expected, but as always these could cause serious visibility issues for a short time. Here's what the short term NAM shows:

Notice that massive Nor'Easter off the New England coast? Yeah, that's to blame for our cold northwest flow and instability snow showers over the next 24 hours. 

I'm going to try and get some drone footage from this one!

A Central Ohio Snow Squall

It's a tradition like no other. The post meteorological winter snow squalls in Central Ohio. This is the third year in a row I've at least got footage of them, some better than others. They happen in March AND April, as evidence from my 2016 and 2017 drone footage:

The biggest thing with a snow squall is visibility drops to almost nothing. Even from a few hundred feet up you can barely see the houses below in both videos. The most fascinating thing to me was the "wall" of snow you can see in the second video. Notice the dark contrast of the clouds against the sunlight you see at the very beginning. If you play the video in double speed you can see the wall of snow moving in. We go from a sunny March afternoon to near white-out conditions in just a matter of minutes.

Then on Thursday we had more squalls. Not nearly as bad as the two above, but I caught another interesting phenomenon on video:

In the early morning hours on Thursday we had a couple quick snow squalls that dropped a good dusting across the area. Should be a problem on the roads, right? Well once the sun came up, the roads cleared up pretty quick. Why? It was cloudy and 25°! That's because the sun angle is high enough in the sky by March that even through clouds and cold temps, the suns rays melt the road snow.

So why are snow squalls common in the later months like March and April? It's all about those transition months. We get warm surges for days (think about late February), followed by Winter's last stands as arctic fronts are still making their way across the region. We usually don't get snow from the front itself, but the backside brings those northwest winds across Ohio. Now here's where that March and April sun comes in to play. Like in the second video you see plenty of sun as the squall approaches. The sun heats the surface just enough to bring lift, almost like a small scale summer storm, and allows these squalls to build quickly. Boom, we have a mesoscale snow storm.

Don't be surprised if we see more of these before Spring takes over for good.

An Unsettled Pattern, No Snow

Has anyone been following the brutal string of Nor'Easter's they're getting on the east coast? For a relatively mundane Dec-Feb, they sure did crank it up for our transition month.

Nothing like that for us here in Ohio, all though we have gone a little cooler than normal. Last week's big coastal storm dug out an impressive trough over the eastern US, and today's transitioning low just reinforced that. So while we did see mild temperatures today, I think we could go quite a few days before we see anything like the upper 50s again. In fact, the Euro is hinting at lows in the teens about nine days out!

Now, who here believes anything any model says nine days out? Me either, but hey, it's suggesting we'll be in a cold air regime for the next 7-10 days. The unfortunate part about that is even with the cold weather, any snow chances seem pretty minimal.

While we could see some snow showers here and there Wednesday and Thursday, there's almost no chance that'll stick on anything other than grass. If we're really grasping at straws here, our next outside chance could come from a storm Sunday or Monday. This has the potential to be the east coast's next big storm. If it flattens out like recent model runs suggest, it may miss us and the east coast. But the GFS is one of the few models that hang on to the chance that this could glance our southern area.

For being 5-6 days out, I'll stick with King Euro for now, which shows it'll pass too far south to do anything for us:

But I'll still be keeping an eye on this. If only because March has been really boring so far and I'm just holding on to the hope that this Winter has one last snowfall left for us.

Hey, snow lovers can dream, right?

Goodbye Winter

Remember those couple inches of rain we had last weekend? Apparently that was the perfect time for my sump pump to give out. When I walked in my basement Saturday morning, the carpet was rather slushy. That should have been a sign that we've seen our last real winter storm.

Then today we have high winds and rain as the future Nor'Easter revved up as it passed through the Ohio Valley. The center of the primary low passed directly over us here in Central Ohio, and the backside may give us a very light dusting of snow on grassy surfaces:

This type of setup is just about the only way we'll see any more measurable snow for the rest of the season. For the foreseeable future in March I think we're in a seasonable pattern, which means we probably have a better chance at thunderstorms than snow showers.

Would anyone in Franklin County believe we had 24.6" of snow on the season? I got closer to 18" and I'm only about 10 miles from the airport. I've ranted a ton about how much CMH fudges the numbers, but when we have a mediocre season and you somehow make it look slightly above average? That's just misleading.

I'll keep an eye out for any potential surprise storms that may give us some sort of measurable snow, but I think we're getting closer to tornado season and further from the snow.

By the way, today is one year since I moved from WunderBlogs. Or rather, was forced from WonderBlogs. In the end, moving to Blogger gave me a lot more freedom and has helped me reach a larger audience. So thanks for screwing up, WeatherUnderground!