Good Afternoon, Everyone!
FYI…I have personally decided to disable all comments on my own posts. Subjective and irrelevant comments were getting out of hand the last time I chose to allow comments, which were getting in the way of the purpose of this blog.
Here are my current thoughts (as of noon Tuesday) on what snowfall amounts our next Canadian Clipper system will bring into our area:
As you can see, it hasn’t changed from my initial forecast I showed on air Monday morning at 5 am. Just glancing at the 1200 UTC MOS for Omaha (Eppley), the snowfall codes for the NAM (MET) guidance are snowfall codes 1+4 through 1200 UTC Thursday…which translates to Trace-2″ + 4″-6″ and the GFS (MAV) guidance are and 0+6…which translates to 0 + 6″-8″.
At this point, I still feel comfortable keeping my initial forecast of 3″-6″ for our entire area, including the Omaha metro. As with most events, there will be isolated higher amounts, in addition to drifting snow since wind speeds will increase to 15-30+ mph by Wednesday evening.
A BIG concern after the accumulating snow ends Wednesday evening will be the increasing winds, ushering another fresh batch of Arctic Air. Forecast wind speeds will likely exceed 30 mph from Wednesday evening through Thursday, due to a very tight pressure gradient from 1018 mb at the center of the low over southeast Wisconsin and the 1050 mb high pressure ridge centered over Montana. Forecast wind chills for Omaha, according to the National Weather Service, will approach -40°F by Friday morning.
Assuming a wind chill of -40°F occurs, frostbite is possible within 10 minutes, which presents a high health danger…certainly a big concern for those standing outside Friday morning.
With the bitterly cold wind chills, I’ve also implied that blowing and drifting snow will be a concern. Be extremely cautious if traveling Wednesday evening (especially) and on Thursday. Due to the dry, powdery nature of the forecast snow, it won’t take much of a strong wind gust to temporarily cause white-out conditions…which will make things hard to see.
Be sure to watch Action 3 Chief Meteorologist Ryan McPike at 5, 6 and 10 pm for the latest on the forthcoming snow and cold!
By the way…I’m on Facebook! You can find my official Action 3 News profile and add me as a friend. I’ll post the daily forecast in your news feed Monday through Friday! Click on this link to find me http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/profile.php?id=1492954296 or search for “KMTV C.T. Thongklin”.