The Kind Of Weather That Tries Men’s Souls

Computer guidance should help my forecast prep. In reality it often makes things worse!

Now I remember why I hate winter so much. It’s the angst before the storms. Two are currently in the offing. I wish I was more confident about my solutions.

Computer guidance should help my forecast prep. In reality it often makes things worse! Tonight each model has a somewhat different answer to the question of snow. Some show a few inches in Northern Connecticut. That’s a reasonable amount, especially if all you are counting was what will fall.

If it were only that simple!

Most of tonight’s flakes will melt on contact. What percentage? Who knows. Significant numbers, sure. It’s tough to accurately quantify. With a few higher elevation exceptions tonight will be a minor nuisance and not much more.

Saturday is a different story entirely. The NAM, which has been the snow monger for tonight’s system is stingy Saturday. In fact it puts no snow over Connecticut!

The European, remarkably accurate during much of the hurricane season, the UKMET and GFS all bring a major Nor’easter through on Saturday. We’re talking plowable snow and a howling wind.

The problem is Connecticut’s trees are full of leaves. A storm like this has the potential to cause nearly as much limb and power trouble as Irene… with snow on top!

I’m not yet saying it’s going to happen–just that it might. There’s a significant chance. I’ll have to work that into the forecast.

Contradictory solutions from the computer models gives me pause. They’re suppose to clear things up, not muddy my view of the future.

These problems can probably be traced to Hurricane Rina, Saturday’s moisture source. Hurricanes are notoriously difficult to forecast.

I’ll be writing about this again later. Right now I’m not a happy camper.

11 thoughts on “The Kind Of Weather That Tries Men’s Souls”

  1. Fully understandable, Geoff. Mother Nature is at best unpredictable. You just have to interpret the data as best you can and make your best prediction. It’s all anyone can ask.

  2. I’m really hoping that there aren’t any Nor’easters this early in the bad weather season. I don’t think the snow is that bad of a problem, but rather the drivers who freak out about snow and cause a whole slew of problems for the rest of us.

  3. My friend, I awoke at 5am yesterday with such SEVERE pain in my face (sinuses) it was not to be believed. I medicated and irrigated, made a hot pack for my face and crawled back into bed. It wasn’t until the drugs kicked in that I realized I was experiencing a “snow headache”. I told a few friends, mark my words within 36 hours we’re gonna snow. Maybe aloft, but snow. They all laughed. My 36 hour window puts snow here at ~7pm. 🙂 Would you like to borrow my face? You do just fine… ok, maybe a little more stressed…. but fine! Snow has to be the hardest thing for you to forecast!

  4. Saturday is my Birthday I don’t fancy having a howling Nor’easter on my birthday. I would have to look but wouldn’t this be the 3rd time in 3 years we’ve had snow before Halloween?

  5. At 4:40PM in Barkhamsted (at 1,142′) the temperature was 36º, it started sleeting but quickly changed over to big slushy snow flakes. It’s now an hour later the temperature has dropped two degrees to 34º and the snow is sticking on the leaves and lawn.

  6. Hey Geoff,

    How does the saying go? If you don’t like the weather in new England, wait five minutes. It has always been hard to forecast the weather here. But it’s new England. I don’t have to tell anyone here that I love SNOW. That being said I don’t want to see anyone put out by it either. You do fine with what you can do.

  7. We can’t possibly have snow this season….I just bought a snowblower. Last time I bought one was after the year of 3 in a row. We didn’t have snow for 3 years.

  8. Funny thing is its not the earliest CT has seen snow. Remember Oct 4 1986? Another one of those freakish early snows. knocked out power for days because of the leaves still on trees. Hope this is just a minor inconvienence.

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