A southward dip in the jet stream will bring snow from the Washington Cascades to California's Sierra Nevada and even the mountains of Southern California as we close out the weekend.
(MORE: Heavy Rain, Flood Threat Targets Pacific Northwest)
This system will then intensify as it slides eastward through the Rockies and into the central Plains early this week. As this happens, snow will spread throughout the Rockies and into the Highs Plains. Increasing winds from the strengthening storm could lead to blizzard or near-blizzard conditions in the High Plains Monday night into Tuesday.
In fact, this system has some potential to become the first named winter storm of the season and it would be given the name Ajax.
The biggest forecast uncertainty, right now, apart from all the typical small-scale details typical in most Front Range snow events, is the speed of this system.
Previous forecast model runs had a slower-moving upper-level system, which is conducive for much heavier snowfall along the Front Range and adjacent High Plains of Colorado, southeast Wyoming, western Nebraska, far western Kansas and far northern New Mexico.
However, recent forecast model runs, including ensembles of models used to diagnose uncertainty, are now moving this bullish upper-level system a bit faster across the High Plains, which would cut down the duration of snow, and, thus, the total accumulations.
It is still too soon to rule out a slower, heavier snowstorm in the High Plains, as we are still roughly two days away from the event, however, the majority of our forecast guidance and trends are now steering away from a widespread, crippling blizzard with feet of snow.
That said, some heavy snow will fall along the Front Range and High Plains of eastern Colorado, western Kansas, possibly into parts of northeast New Mexico, the Oklahoma panhandle and far northern Texas panhandle.
http://www.wunderground.com/news/winter-storm-snow-plains-rockies-denver-november-2015
No comments:
Post a Comment