Snow fights back

Sunday Dec 14th 9:00 pm EDT
- A moderate low pressure system is set to move just South of lake Erie Tuesday night into Wednesday, a general swath of 5-10 cm is expected across Southern Ontario. The models have a general agreement in the track of this system, the intensity of the snow is still being disputed. Due to the lack of moisture associated and the slow merge with the warmer south jet, snow should be lighter than expected.


Snow right now is melting quickly around Southern Ontario as warm air extends all across. However, snowcover will quickly return as a small system will bring a decent 5-10 cm to most areas in Southern Ontario.

After looking at the lack of moisture and the slow phasing, I concluded that this one will not qualify as a winter storm. However, this will still bring quite a bit of snow and should whiten things up yet again.

However, what I am interested in is the much larger system that follows. The models made the usual Northwest trend the last two days, giving high temp of up to 10 degrees on one run. I do not think this will be the case. Just like the last system, the models underestimated the strength of the arctic air. The storm turned out stronger and colder than what was expected. Many areas expected only a few centimeters got much more than that(Montreal got 25 cm instead).

The upper level temperature looks to be quite warm, if the surface temperature is lower than the upper level temp, we are looking at an ice storm. However, this is still early in the ball game and lots of things needs to be determined. A primary forecast will be issued tommorow as well as a map, things will be interesting yet again.

On a side note, we are still above the average in terms of snowfall here in Toronto and I bet many areas around us is way above. I guess many of us were spoiled by last winter thinking this one totally stink, however, we are right on par, if not above the historical average.