Tuesday, October 28, 2014

10/28- STORM WATCH ISSUED BY ME FROM 1 AM SATURDAY TO 10 PM SATURDAY- What a difference a day makes...

Good Tuesday all-

Today is going to be a beautiful day, with temps in the mid-70s and bright sunshine! Scattered rain showers are still very likely tomorrow. The real trouble, however, lies at Saturday, and actually this merits its' own paragraph.

Alright, so remember Hurricane Ana from last week that threatened Hawaii? The remnants are going to hit the Pacific Northwest today, and then become a clipper system that will work its' way across the Great Lakes region on Friday. At the same time, a low pressure from the Gulf, which is totally separate from anything tropical, moves up the East coast...and you probably can guess what's going to happen. Eventually, these two features will combine and, well...IF everything comes together...we'd be looking at an Oct '11 redux. Heavy snow and strong wind would be possible, and power outages would be commonplace because all the leaves are still on the trees. An early guess at the worst possible accumulation this weekend would be something like 7-14", but I do not forecast that at this time, and probably has about a 33% chance of happening. In this scenario, winds would also gust up to 50-60mph, and would be a storm we talk about for years. This is, in fact, currently forecasted by the European model. The situation that everyone is talking about on the news (scattered snow showers) is unlikely- I do think everyone will see an accumulating snow down to the shoreline- but news channels have to be more careful than I do on this blog. Conservatively, I'll say an accumulating snow for Saturday, say the potential is there for a blockbuster, and leave it there.

The threat, though, is real enough for me to issue a STORM WATCH, and will update two times per day until the threat either goes away, or we are finished dealing with the big one. Regardless of whether we get a truly epic snowstorm, enjoy the season's first flakes.

In the Atlantic- Tropical Storm Hanna shocked the meteorology world by suddenly forming yesterday basically right on the coast of the Honduras, and moved inland very quickly, dumping heavy rain on the area. It's already dead, and development is not expected anytime soon.

In the Pacific- See yesterday's post.

Today in weather history- October 28, 1846- A blizzard drops 5 feet of snow on what is now referred to as Donner pass, because this strands the Donner party in the mountains for the winter, and barely more than half survive the winter. The story has, over the years, acquired an almost mythical feel, and there certainly many, many articles out there about this if you are interested in more information.

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