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.
Wednesday, March 14, 2018
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.
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.
Monday, March 12, 2018
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!
Sunday, March 11, 2018
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.
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.
Tuesday, March 6, 2018
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?
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?
Thursday, March 1, 2018
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!
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!
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