Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Going With My Gut...

Tippecanoe County was placed under a Level 3 Travel Advisory at 8:00 a.m. on Tuesday morning. Under a Level 3 Advisory, all travel is permitted but residents are encouraged to avoid unncessary trips if possible. Tony Slocum, of the Indiana State Police, agreed that roads were snow covered, slick, and hazardous.

He offered the following tips for safe driving:

Clear all windows, head/tail lamps of snow and ice
Turn headlights on, even in the daylight hours
Reduce speed
Be aware of sudden stops
Keep distance between vehicles, don't tailgate
Hang up cell phones, and drive with caution
Buckle up
MOVE OVER, SLOW DOWN when approaching emergency vehicles


Here is a link below that you can visit to find out all the counties that may or may not be under a level 1, 2 or 3, Warning, Watch or Advisory.

http://www.in.gov/dhs/files/travel-advisory-map/

Well, a lot of people are watching this snow in the Midwest today as there have been a lot of talk over the past few days! And a lot of thinking and re-thinking before any forecast have been made. Well, I still have to stick with what I have called for yesterday as I still don't see anything that supports nine and ten inches. First off lets go ahead and take a look at why the snow has stopped below.

You can see in this radar image above taken at 10:36am EST that we are starting to pull in some dry air causing a dry slot to form over our area. At 9:am we had a temperature around 23 degrees with a dew point around 20 degrees. That only a three degrees difference which is good and moist. However as the day is going on we currently stand with a temperature of 29 degrees and a dew point of 23 degrees. This is a six degree difference which means dry air! The closer these two numbers come together the more moist our air is.



Well, anyway you can see the low pressure system to our north west. This is going to try and move over our area bringing some wraparound snow along with it. This is where a lot of other stations are expecting to get the rest of their ten inches. However I have gone through the latest data and even the QPF models and they just don't seem to support that at this time! Currently the QPF is forecasting around a "1" for tonight into Wednesday. This is around 0.09" to 0.10" inches of precipitation. Now as that falls as snow that turns into around 1" or 2" inches however if things are just right we may be able to squeeze out just a "Little" more. Even Bufket model is showing me around 2.5" inches more of snowfall. I just don't think we have enough moisture with this storm right now. But again I'm the only one forecasting less then ten inches. This is one of those times when you set and question yourself, "Am I missing something?" But sometimes you just have to stick with what you see and go with your gut. Time will tell one way or the other! But I do THANK YOU for all your wonderful support!



One thing I like to have when a system like this one moves into our area is a LOT of golf moisture!
Do you see a LOT of golf moisture in this image above?? I don't. So what we have now is the wraparound snow which could act like a clipper. Now I still have around a 60% chance for 4" inches and I will still keep my range. Which is 4" to 6" inches. But I Don't see any more then that! Again time will tell and again I thank you!Brow, sends us in a picture form up in Monticello, showing the snowy white stuff as he cleaned off his car. I know for a FACT that he is wanting MORE SNOWFALL! lol :) This just gives you an idea as to what things look like at this time in parts of the WLFI viewing area. Lafayette, has picked up currently around 2.2" inches. And last but not last! I do agree with one thing the other stations call for and that's the winds! Starting later on this evening into tonight we will see the winds start to pick up gusting near 30+ mph at times. This will go on into Wednesday. Snow will blow around like crazy and this could cause some blizzard "like" conditions at times. However it's not a blizzard if that makes sense?!?! ;)

Be sure to keep the pictures coming. You can send them to me at storm18mini@aol.com Thanks again. I'll check back as needed.....

Stay safe and stay warm!

3 comments:

Brow said...

I see the dry spot that you are talking about but what's behind it?

Not trying to argue and you know that I always take some shots in the dark with my weather predictions(lol), but what's building up behind it in IL right now?

Everything that you have just pointed out makes perfect sense though. Ahhhhh so much excitement in this. :) You all know my wish and I just get frustrated when I get my hopes up and hardly get any snow.

It also doesn't help having family living out in VA and sending me pics of their 30+ inches of snow!

Looking again, I see some more snow coming next week...not sure the potential on that though.

JIWB said...

Yes, Brow. What's in IL, right now is all part of the wraparound snow that will move in along with that low pressure system to our northwest.

This is what will give us our extra snow and this is what the other meteorologist are hoping will add the totals up to nine and ten inches. And you said it," Ahhhhh so much excitement in this. :)" lol Very true! ;)

Lafayette, is currently up to 5.5" inches of snow adding the Old snow from our last storm along with the new snow. However the only number that really matters is the new snow count. And that Lafayette is only at 2.7" inches. Still a ways to go at this point! Just be ready for the winds tonight into Wednesday. This will make things dangerous and very tricky! It will be hard to get a good snow count by morning. We will be taking many many core samples that's for sure!

Justin.

Anonymous said...

As I said earlier Justin I still think you got it rite. Sometimes I think many forget that we just do not get that many heavy snows. So even if you always made a lower estimate of snowfall you will be rite far more times than you are wrong.

What does surprise my though is that these systems seem to always change and miss us. One would think that occasionally a system that was suppose to miss us would surprise us by dumping on us. But it seems like time after time meteorologist have to explain why a storm missed us versus having to explain why it changed and nailed us.

Again great job. You need to make a vocation out of meteorology and get rich. lol