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Tuesday, December 16, 2008




BETTER LUCK THIS TIME?


NWS Baltimore-Washington 12-16-08

Maybe marginal temperatures this time will allow the forecast to more closely match reality, as last time both the NWS and I ended up with bungled calls. The last winter weather advisory for the Baltimore-DC Metro area didn't yield much. The difference this time? Cold air is at the helm, whereas last time, on going surges of warm moist tropical air aloft kept the cold air restricted to Pennsylvania. As you can plainly see from the radar to the right...it is apparent the cold air is winning this battle. I will wait for evidence on the ground from your observations before I make a call. The oddity of this round of advisories is the text discusses a changeover of rain to freezing rain and snow, yet the NWS point-and-click forecasts for towns across the area show tonight's forecast to be plain rain. Check back around 9PM for a call on schools.

12-16-08 Radar

Based on my analysis of the "Nowcast" links, where I can perform a quick assessment of storm dynamics, it DOES NOT appear this will be a surprise ice storm for the Baltimore Metro region. Nor does it seem likely places like Southern Balto County, Howard, Anne Arundel or Montgomery will get any school delays out of this. Hereford Zone, Harford and Frederick might be the only ones this time. We have a classic "over-running" situation, (strong cold 1038mb high to the north, precip running over the cold air) but alas the surface/boundary layer cold air is too marginal this time. Sleet/freezing rain are "latent heat release" events, that tend to keep the temperature right at or just above 32. By contrast, snow is an evaporative cooling event, which pulls heat out of the atmosphere and thus chills it, thereby making the environment around the snow falling more conducive to producing additional snow. Despite your expectation of falling temps tonight, I think whatever they are right now will be exactly that by sunrise. That radar loop will look just about the same come morning I'll bet. A delay for all of BCPS could only occur if slightly more than half the county reporting areas observes slippery conditions by 5AM, which I doubt.

However, next week the drumbeats have already started on a major winter weather event taking shape for Saturday-Sunday. This looks to be the big kickoff I've been indicating for some time (just off on the timing!). More details about that Wednesday.