Some decent snowfall yesterday as most of the Sioux Empire saw anywhere from 1-3". We recieved just under 2" at the station on the south side of Sioux Falls. Well, if you like the snow, then you are in luck as more is expected tonight. A small Alberta Clipper will be diving down into the state this evening that will bring a band of light snow along with it. Most totals will stay under an inch but widespread areas of a dusting to a half inch or so can be expected. Typically, these systems are very tough to spot because they are incredibly small and forecast models have a really hard time picking up on them more then two days out. Well, the picture below is an example of what a clipper can look like on a forecast map. I circled the area that it is located.
Notice the brief change in wind direction, the small surge of warmer air, and the kink in the pressure lines (I drew a line through the axis of the kink to help you see it). This will move through pretty quickly and will be pretty painless as we are expecting anywhere from a dusting to an inch of snow. Temperatures continue to look cold right through the weekend, so expect this snow to stick around for a bit.
~KDLT Meteorologist Cody Matz
2 comments:
how do you know when it's going to snow?
Thats a really good question, and to be honest, there is a lot to it. But I will give you the short version. There are three basic components that you look for in the atmosphere to give you precipitation; heat(relative term), moisture, and lift. When you combine all three variables, you will more often then not get some sort of precipitation. The hard part of forecasting though is trying to figure out just exactly when and where those components will meet each other. To do this as accurately as possible, we use forecasting models that are produced by several countries from around the world. We use these models to come up with a consensus of whats going to happen in the upcoming days. However, its very difficult because every model is saying something different, so you have to decide which model you want to use or if you want to use a combination of several models to come up with your forecast. Not always as easy as it sounds. Now that you know all of that I can actually answer your question. Deciding when its going to snow is just like deciding when its going to rain except you have to be aware of where temperatures are below freezing at all levels of the atmosphere and not just at the surface.
~KDLT Meteorologist Cody Matz
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Thoughts from you guys...