Cold Storm for Tuesday Afternoon

At around noon Tuesday a cold storm will drop out of the north and begin to have an effect on our weather. By 4:00 the storm will be raging with strong winds, much colder temps and even valley snowfall. This is a fast moving storm that does not have much in the way of a moisture tap and therefore, do not expect much snow. Here is the forecast for 4:00pm on Tuesday:


This storm has a very poor trajectory, unless its cold air you are interested in. It will drop more out of the north than the west, which will limit moisture.

I look for 5-10 inches by Thanksgiving for the Carson range. This is a very cold storm and snow to water ratios could be as high as 20 to 1. There is another shortwave that should follow the main storm on Wednesday, so that will add some minor, additional accumulation.

This is a fairly typical storm for this time of year, however if we look west across the Pacific, there is a lot going on. Super Typhoon Koppu is causing havoc. I will be interested to see what happens as this storm begins to move east, across the Pacific and toward the USA west coast. Right now, we still have our persistent ridge of high pressure dominating our weather. Are we going to begin to see storms undercut the ridge and force it north. When that happens, El Nino will start to influence our weather. We are looking at the possibility of a major weather pattern change during the first week in December. As one of my researchers put it, "the rain may start that first week and not end until May".

Stay Tuned ...