Sunday, March 22, 2009

All kinds of things in the forecast a must read.

Forecast problems....Winds,temps,rain,thunderstorms,and last but least snow chances..Possible major winter storm by weeks end into the upcoming weekend...Lots to hash out so lets get right to it...

CURRENT CONDITIONS.....

Temps at this 7AM hour range from the upper 20s to middle 30s across our FA..Winds are from the East around the 5 to 10 MPH range with some stations reporting gusts up to 20 MPH....Radar showing a few returns over Northern Cass County into Itasca County..This area is heading to the East...Don't think it will get much farther than said area do to dry Easterly winds off of Lake Superior...

SFC ANALYSIS.....

This morning's charts we find a strong 1040 MB high pressure over Southern Hudson Bay area,this has kept a dry Easterly wind in our far Northeastern areas of MN,and allowed for temps to drop in a few spots to bottom out below zero...Frontal boundary that came trough late yesterday is now a stationary front,which is sitting over Southern WI and MN than extends back toward the Northwest to a 998 MB low pressure system over Eastern MT.....

TODAY THROUGH TUESDAY NIGHT.....

Strong high pressure over Canada will keep Easterly wind flowing off Lake Superior today this will allow for our Northeastern area to remain partly cloudy as drier air keeps clouds at bay up there....Meanwhile If clouds have not increase at you local area they shall do so this morning....As we get back into a return flow once again...WAA has already began to kick in through out much of the area....Low pressure over MT will be kicked Northeast into Canada By 00z Mon...We will see another low pressure take shape over CO this should be running in the 992 MB range at said time...By 12z Mon said low will have deepen to around 986 MBS as it pulls Northeast into Southwestern NE..This will shoot a warm front North into MN ..So rain is good bet Mon...I have decide to keep a chance of FZRA for my Northeastern part of MN with winds still coming out the lake and moisture flowing Northwards...Arctic air remains trapped in that area for Mon and Mon night....Rest of the FA should be mild temps with highs in the middle 50s despite the cloud cover on Monday and once again Tuesday....By 00z Tue 992 MB low is forecasted to be over Northern NE ..Warm and moist are flowing Northward should produce showers and thunderstorms over the whole FA...Still having a hard time buying into thunderstorms way up North,but all models are pointing to it so will run with it for now...Lapse Rates increase to around 6 C/KM by 18z Tue...Through out much of our Southern and central areas,bit lower in our Northern areas of MN...LIS ranging from 0 to -1..Looks like elevated thunderstorms will be possible mainly Monday night through Tuesday early evening...Parts of far Western MN zones could be dealing with heavy rainfall amounts 1" plus possible while the rest of the FA should see a good dump of rain...up to 3/4 inches possible...

WEDNESDAY THROUGH SATURDAY....

Cold front plows through the area this will change the rain over to all snow for late Tue night into Wed...As of right now best areas to pick up a few inches would be in out Northwestern/Northern areas of MN..Elsewhere's only light snow....Now our attention Turns to what good be a major winter storm for late in the week and into the first part of the weekend....We see a 996 MB low pressure taken shape over the CO/OK areas on Wed night/Thu time frame...All models bring this system Northeast rather fast right through Central WI...If that track works out this would put the much of the FA into a heavy snow event thermal profiles and 850 along with 700 MB temps also shows this well...Something we will need to watch....This could turn out to be one of the biggest snow events we seen all winter...Temps will be below norms after the first part of the work week....As we need to work out the timing and some other details...For now I kept POPS rather low do to timing issues and pending track of system...

Longer term....(SUN Mar 29 THROUGH TUE Apr 7).....

We start the period with temps below norms and will hold on to them through this forecast cycle..It appears that we will have off and on chances of snow through out this time frame....So everyone will be asking where is spring...