Sunday AM Update:

Highlights”

Fridged air mass invaded North Dakota this morning and will make its way to Western Wisconsin by 6:00pm Local time.  The coldest portion of the air mass arrives well after the Packers game is over.  This is a timing issue and a good thing for the players and fans….  Don’t get me wrong, it will be cold, but not nearly as cold as the 1967 game.

As the (PV) Polar vortex swings through the great lakes region and eventually redevelops east of Hudson Bay Tuesday morning, the trailing Upper Trof  finally kicks its way out over the Atlantic Tuesday afternoon.  As mentioned before, this creates an excessive wave length and allows the west coast ridge to:

1st: Weaken

2:  Retrograde to 140west by mid week next week.

3. So the 1st system that comes through the ridge Tuesday washes out with just clouds for us.  The Second system is an interior CA slider bringing wind, cooling, and some light snowfall Thursday.

The QPF is pretty light at the moment. About 1 to 3 inches in town. The crest might get 3 to 5 inches by Friday AM..  Maybe……..

 

Than that’s it for quite a while

 

The Dweeber………………………………:-(

 

No Change from the last discussion other than to mention that there will be a couple of small systems coming through the weakened west coast ridge next week that may bring some light snowfall to the Eastern Sierra.  Like a comet that emerges after a trip around the sun….there is no telling from this distance in time, what will be left of the two systems once they emerge through the west coast ridge into California. In the meantime, it will be a little cooler Saturday night and Sunday due to some cooler air following an Ajax/Aspen, Co Slider. So a little increase in Sierra Crest wind is possible Saturday afternoon into Sunday AM.  Upper ridge Rebuilds into Following weekend…..

PS….. Is little Nells still in Aspen? Use to work for the Aspen Ski Corp Winter of 1973, top of chair 6. Someone let me know…..

 

The Dweeber……………….

 

Taking a look at the new 12z Thursday GFS deterministic model, and last nights EC, there is a chance of a small storm sneaking in here about the 9th.  Here is what the Dweebs are looking at.   1st of all I will preface this by saying that for sometime now the CFC has had something getting in here about the middle of January. I know that is the pretty amorphous, however, there are some changes down stream that may allow some energy upstream to get in here for some light snowfall later next week.

From what I can see, in the coming days….the big polar vortex over Canada that will put the big freeze to the northern mid west,  and then eastward will be shifting out over the Atlantic early next week. The key here is that it opens up a big wave length between the vortex (PV) and the west coast ridge. Even through this ridge is still very much alive and well in the eastern pacific, it gets weakened. Weakened enough to allow some short wave action into the west coast between the 7th and 9th of January.   The ECMWF has a few systems coming in from the northwest that would bring us some light snowfall. And yes, they may be inside sliders. However, they may not be as well. This mornings 12z deterministic GFS run actually splits the ridge with a short wave coming toward the central west coast Thursday then moving SE making landfall near San Diego.   Because of the distance in time, there will be other solutions to this particular short wave…the wave of Thursday January 9th.

If this wave spins up and moves into Southern Ca, we may get some upslope/wrap around.  However, the main message here is that this is the classic system that will affect parts of California in a drought pattern, giving coastal sections of Ca some light precip. If by some remote chance the system split out to sea further north….Central California would do better and we might get lucky with a foot.   At this time…..It is too far out for any confident forecast to determine what track it will finally take.

What I like about the change in the pattern is that an excessive wave length is finally forecasted to occur next week.  I like to give credit to some of my mentors when due…..So Tom C…thanks for the memories…….

 

The Dweeber…………………….:-)