With the previous clipper storm that gave us our largest accumulations of the season (so far), the NAM was the most accurate model. In general this winter, the NAM has been the most accurate model so I'd lend more weight to it than the other models. However, even the GFS has trended wetter with this system, as you can see below.
Both models place the heaviest precipitation just to our south, but considering the general trends with clipper systems this winter, I wouldn't be surprised to see the heaviest precipitation actually end up a little further north than is currently depicted. I'd call for 1-2" with this storm right now. Not much, but considering our last 1"+ snow was 3 weeks ago, it's worth talking about I guess.
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Looming 6-7 days away is a bigger system...the question is, who does it affect? I'm not willing to offer up an predictions 6-7 days out, but I will discuss our chances. First up, let's look at where some of the forecast models have this storm tracking.
The GFS has the storm going off the coast of the Carolinas, out to sea.
The ECMWF has the storm as a huge hit for the east coast.
The UKMET has the storm at the MS/AL border but the model doesn't go beyond that image...extrapolating it out it would probably be a little west of the ECMWF.
An explanation before I get to the next paragraph...a storm "phases" when two systems combine to make a stronger system. A phase generally causes the storm in question to track further west.
Still a wide range of possibilities with this storm. The GFS and ECMWF have some huge differences, but considering what they are showing in the upper levels of the atmosphere, their solutions make sense. The GFS shows the southern stream storm moving through the U.S. without phasing with another system. That's what happened with the current storm that's dumping snow on Richmond and Washington D.C., so if it happened again, it stands to reason that the storm would track well south of us.
On the other hand, the ECMWF shows a partial phase between the southern stream system and an upper-level system in the Plains states. It doesn't fully phase, but it does phase enough to prevent the storm from going out to sea. Still, neither model shows us being affected by the storm in question. So why am I talking about this? Because the models are not that good at depicting upper-air patterns 6-7 days out. The ECMWF seemed to me to be pretty close to a more complete phase between the two systems, and the more the systems phase, the further west it tracks. Therefore, it is not out of the question that this tracks far enough west to affect us. Is it likely to happen? No. Is there enough chance of it happening to make it worth talking about? Yes, especially with the lack of snowstorms so far this winter.
That's all for today, next post will be up by this time tomorrow afternoon.
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