Friday, March 28, 2014

Challenging forecast Saturday night involving exploding east coast storm

Very tricky forecast for Saturday night as a storm is expected to explode in the vicinity of the Delmarva and spread precipitation deep into New England. Temperatures are very, very marginal this weekend but the National Weather Service is concerned enough about a potential "heavy wet snow event" that they have posted a Winter Storm Watch for much of the region, MRG included. The justification for this comes from data released by successive runs of a higher resolution short term model. Other data from the more globally gridded, lower resolution medium range models suggest a warmer storm and mostly rain for areas below 2,000 feet. I am inclined to believe that this is a elevation sensitive event, especially when talking about snowfall totals. When some of the heaviest stuff is falling overnight Saturday, precipitation should be a gloppy snow but accumulations will be most significant across the high country, particularly from the mid-station up. When precipitation is not as heavy, it will likely fall as rain in the valley's and remain snow or mixed precipitation across the high country. There is a substantial amount of moisture associated with this storm and if we can keep most of this snow on top of the mountain, it could get very deep, even upwards of 10 or more inches. I don't expect Rt 100 to receive more than a gloppy inch or two and the base of MRG might even struggle to get anything more than a few wet inches. There are also indications of some invasive warm layers in the atmosphere that could change everyone to rain Sunday as precipitation lessens in intensity.

This remains a much more "spring" oriented pattern which means plenty of above freezing days over the next week. Monday through Wednesday will see readings into the 40's during the afternoons. By then end of the week, another significant storm system could impact the region. Temperatures may not be cold enough to support snow but I would not completely rule it out, especially this winter. The weekend of April 5th and 6th should see a return to below average temperatures and this could extend through part of the following week. Blogging for the duration of the season will be dependent on how late the mountain decides to stay open. I know there is some deep snow out there still but if MRG decides to ramp down the hours, the SCWB will do the same.

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