Saturday AM Update:

Temps were certainly milder last night than what was earlier expected. Overnight lows were near freezing here near the village. It will be colder tonight. The Winds had much to do with the mild night but so did the invading air mass. As mentioned in the previous discussion, there is the cut off low that is being dislodged or picked up by one of the branches in the westerlies. It will dampen out as far as dynamics before moving on shore. However in that it spent many days in the Subtropics it has a lot of moisture with it. So a mild moist advection pattern will be most likely with it. That will be followed by some cooling Wednesday. Both EC and the GEM have a subsequent low following for Thursday and Thursday Night. That system is a bit more dynamic. For the time being will not include that in the outlook.  So the 1st dampened out wave will provide a period of 36 to 48 hours of the chance of light precipitation here in the Sierra.  Amounts look like a few inches of snow. However, there will be an orographic component, so I will update on snowfall estimates tomorrow Sunday. It may be that we get 3 to 5 inches over the crest from that system. Now with that said, there is a following system that the GEM and ECMWF have in sight for Thursday/Ngt. I just looked at the QPF on the EC from last nights run and it shows another .5+ inches of water for another 5 to 7 inches of snowfall figuring for Orographics. So I guess it is possible that we may get a foot+ mid week. For the time being, the Lead forecasters at WSFO’s are not buying into the second system as the GFS did not have it on last nights run. Should it be included in the new runs today and tomorrow….these forecasters will be all over it.  You then will see the POP’s increase as well as snowfall estimates from the Thursday system. All models are building heights into the weekend for fair WX.  Major pattern change the end of the month….to What?  I have no idea!

More Later…………………..

 

Dr Howard and the Dweebs…………………….