Hating Time

What's this? We STILL need to wait for our first measurable amount of snow???? The mood is foul on this first day of this jolly month. It's hating time!

"Winter Storm Alex" not so wintery
Boo! Hate! Hate! Way to trick us snow-starved people like this! The continued westward shift of the models basically confirmed the track as of last night. Here is exactly what I think happened.

The track of the storm is not much off from my original thought, still going to be slightly below the lakes and along west of the apps. However, the storm tracked up too fast. The cold front associated with the clipper that past above would not bring cold arctic air before and during the storm. This caused the storm to travel directly up north with no cold high pressure air mass dominating. A west app track with no cold air this early in winter is never ideal. Places in extreme Southwestern Ontario as well as North of Orillia could see over 5cm from this storm. Anywhere East of London and South should probably get a coating to 2cm.

I am satisfied with the way I handled this system mostly, doing much less model reading and more extrapolation than last year. I think this is definitely a good way to shake off those early season jitters!

Tracking... Don't hate
I am still watching the two systems which I mentioned yesterday and my thoughts are pretty much exactly the same. Tomorrow, I will start talk about them full scale.

Hate Comments
Since the start of this weather blog, I've started to receive quite a bit of comments. Obviously, not all comments I receive for doing all this work are positive. I mean, constructive criticisms are always welcome. However, it still amazes me that some moronic individuals decide that insulting someone's work over the internet is a good way to spend their time. I guess the only thing society gain from these people is a laugh. From time to time, I guess I'll put out these hate comments I received for your enjoyment! :)
Anonymous 1: Haha you young punks trying to predict the weather, leave that to your daddy!

What we have here is a classic case of insecurity, seeing that someone much younger is doing something much more productive with their life. I guess it is quite ironic that this "young punk" here is quite a bit more mature and knowledgable than you.
Anonymous 2: Go back to your country you dirty jap!

There are so many things wrong with this comment. First of all, I am not Japanese. Second of all, this is so incredibly racist that it isn't even funny anymore. Judging someone by the colour of their skin is something I expect from rednecks down south in the states, not a country like Canada where the diversity of culture is celebrated. In this day and age, how a person decide to write something like this on the internet is beyond me, but I guess I've seen worse(e.g. youtube comments).

Like Peter Chao once said(If you don't know him, you are missing some good humour!), " It is time to stop drinking the haterade and start drinking the bubble tea!"

Look beyond!

Short update on Alex
Most of you probably already heard that the models trended quite a bit west over the last few runs. This is pretty much what I thought would happen in the beginning. While this may not be the end of the world, it does make the chance of seeing significant snowfall less likely. I am still sticking with 2-10cm of snow for Golden Horshoe and Southwestern Ontario with the extreme western edge likely seeing over 5cm of snow from this.

"Arctic" Outbreak
Cold air is coming! Despite a lack of snow/cold the last little while, cold air will be arriving shortly after the "winter storm". When, What, Where, Why, How? Let me explain this in some details.

What we have after Alex is a typical ridge trough pattern. Cold arctic air ushering in from the northwest, pushing a trough in the jet stream in the East. Pacific Warmth rush inland, pushing a ridge in the West . We will be in for this general pattern for quite a bit this December, I am guess til at least the 20s(Perhaps most of the winter will consist of this type of general pattern). When this type of pattern occurs, we will definitely have below normal temperatures. However, the snowfall amount could vary.

If the high pressure is just offshore most of the time(Bermuda high provinding a ridge in the extreme SE). When low pressure systems arrive, they will be pushed inland, providing us with the cold side of a winter storm. Translating to above normal snowfall. If the high pressures sit inland as will as above greenland for most of the time. We will be in for a blocking pattern. Low pressure systems will generally stay offshore, providing us with slightly normal snowfall( possibly seeing more though with Alberta Clippers).

I think we will be in for the first scenerio for the first part of this pattern and trancents to a blocking pattern when the arctic air is firmly in place. This particular outbreak will come in a few waves, interrupted by possible winter storms. With each wave bringing colder arctic air.

Wave 1 - Dec 4 - Dec 7
Right after Alex, a cold front will bring the first wave of arctic air. Highs of near 0 and lows around -5 to -7 will be expected.

Wave 2- Dec 10- Dec 13
A second wave of arctic air will blast across after a winter storm around this period. A significant lake effect event should take place during this period.

Wave 3 - Dec 15 to late Dec
A blocking pattern cold lock its place. Lows in the negative high teens into the -20s are expected.

One mistake we often make is basing medium range predictions on models. Unfortunately, models such as the GFS never handle these types of situations well. They tend to fluctuate quite a bit model by model. For example, looking at the 00z GFS last night, it almost appears we are not going to have an arctic outbreak at all(also another reason the 14 days trend on TWN is bs)! The tools we should use for medium range forecast is 1) telecollections 2) general patterns of ensembles/models 3) common sense.

Next Storm?
We will definitely be seeing something in the period of next weekend to early next week. My early guess right now is that we will be seeing out first snowstorm of the winter sometime during the Dec 5-11th period. Right now the models are showing an offshore storm around 5-7th. I won't be surprised if it starts to shift west and track inland over the next few days. If not, there will be a Colorado low setting up around 9-11th. The thing to keep in mind now is that the arctic air is already IN place. The likelihood of seeing a good amount of snow out of a system during this time period will be pretty high.

Schedule?
Obviously, there isn't really a firm schedule on what I will be talking about each day since it is the weather! However, I have a rough idea on what the next few days should go on this blog.

Tomorrow - Winter Storm Alex full forecast
Wednesday- Storm possibility for next winter storm,
Thursday- Alex Observation/Post Storm, more in depth analyzes on the upcoming pattern
Friday to Sunday - Forecast period for next possible winter storm

Don't be too greedy!

Despite the continued juggling by the models today, I grew a lot more confident with how this storm will turn out. As you can see above, here is the 1st amount map of our winter season :)

Surprise Flakes?

A quick Alberta Clipper will drop down into Southern Ontario tonight. It will be mainly cold rain with a some flurries likely on the backside. However, there could be a quick changeover overnight into early morning. If the cold front arrives before a band of precip could, don't be surprised to see a couple of centimeters of snow on the ground tomorrow morning around the Golden Horseshoe as well as Southwestern Ontario. This will finally trigger the lakes a little. Northwest wind should bring 3-5 centimeters of snow to many areas of the Snowbelt.

The Storm

Most of you must be wondering why my forecast amount seems so little whereas the models seemed to interpret a lot more snow. Let me have a few explanations before you start becoming upset with me.

Currently, I am eyeing the west of Apps track right now. Today, most of the models shifted west as was expected. I expect the final track to be something between the Euro and Canadian model as indicated on yesterday’s map.

Like I mentioned yesterday, the concern with this storm is definitely the lack of cold air and when/where will the jets phase for this storm. Unfortunately, with the way things seemed to look right now, it is definitely not in our favour.

One thing I learned last winter is NEVER try interpreting snowfall amounts from particular model runs, especially looking those nice little “snow on ground maps” that some sites have for the models. They are usually never accurate and tend to underestimate the surface heating. Even if things were to occur as say, the 12z GFS indicates, it will definitely not be the 8 inches of snow. The surface temperature is 3-5 Celsius during most of the time period, which is impossible for pure accumulating snow to occur. Instead, what we will have is a long period of rain/wet snow mix with one or two inches on the backside.

With two years of experience under my belt, I think I am getting much better at extrapolating based on the characteristics of the model runs as well as the present meteorological factors. However, this is no where near my final call yet and a very small factor could change the dynamics of things. Right now I am confident with the track, but not yet settled with the other variables.

the anticipation of the first storm

Ti's the season to be jolly indeed. After a rather uninteresting November, winter is finally brewing as we approach the Christmas shopping season.

The Storm
We always get the excitement about the first winter storm we track. Since this is early in the ball game, right now we are just calculating the factors effecting the storm as well as weighing the projected possibilities. Few things to keep in mind right now:

1. We need a perfect set up to receive a major winter storm from this system
2. Arctic air may/may not be fast enough to make this storm cold
3. The models are still having the early season jitters, especially the Euro

With that being said, right now I am leaning towards the middle west app track for this storm and will treat the Euro showing a coastal track the outlier. There is also the possibility of it shifting even more west. Even if with the classic west of App track, I am concerned about the lack of arctic air which could turn snow into rain or mixed. I won't comment on the exact timing or even a vague amount as of now, things aren't too certain yet about this storm(as is always when it is still 4-5 days out).


Arctic outbreak

What IS certain is the fact that a big arctic outbreak will follow the onset of this storm. Temperature will certainly be very winter-like for a while after the 4th. My biggest question about this outbreak is how it will effect the storm track over the next little while. Will the arctic high pressure dominate and push the storms off the coast, leaving us with clippers? Or will the arctic air feed into the storm and leave us the cold side of several big winter storms? I will have a better forecast on this tomorrow as well as a map.

Misc.

Yes, I will still be using the naming system for this winter, I will still wait another 24 hours before giving this storm a name. In other news, the Raptors are horrible right now, but I am still optimistic they will turn around.

This is actually the first weekend in a while which I can actually relax a bit. I hope you like this new style of blog posts. Cheers to another season of winter storm tracking!

Back to another season of fun!

Yeah, I kinda faded away quite a while the last 8 month or so. I would not go in detail about the personal issues I was dealing with over the time period. Hey, I'm back now!

If anybody is wondering about my winter forecast, I've explained a little in the accuweather forum about how things went horribly wrong. I still made some small predictions and if you want to check that out, just visit this thread: http://forums.accuweather.com/index.php?showtopic=15377

Before I talk about anything exciting, let me tell you about some small adjustments that I will make this winter:

- Last winter, I tend to overestimate the amounts, this year, with more experience in my belt, I think I got that settled.

- I am planning to run this blog year long from today on, meaning I will not fade away as the winter season fades away.

-Due to the time restraints this year, my forecasts will not be as detailed as last year but more straight to the point.

-Expanding into Southern Quebec

That is all I have to say for now, but I'll be back in a few hours because we have a storm to talk about!(That's right!)