Tuesday, February 25, 2014

March 12-17 Potentially Significant Storm System

I'm seeing the potential for a significant storm system in the March 12-17 period.

Shown above is an ECMWF forecast for the evening of March 5th, depicting 500mb height anomalies over the North Pacific. If we look on the left half of the image, we see a deep trough over Japan, one with strength we haven't seen in some time.If we use the 6-10 day correlation, explained by Joe Renken, to tell us when these two systems may 're-appear' in the US, we find ourselves at a March 12-16 potentially significant storm. If this solution were to verify, we could see the strength of the trough translate over to that March 12-16 storm as well. This could mean a significant storm system, potentially accompanied by significant cold weather. It's too far out to tell if this could be a big snow maker, but judging on how the climate is shaping up for mid-March, I would certainly keep an eye out for some snowy impacts.

The GFS model shifts the timeframe a little further down the road to the afternoon of March 7th, but agrees on the idea of a strong storm system over Japan. Again, it'll take a while before we get into details, but it's clear that there is a chance for a significant storm system over the March 12-17 period. I'll have more details on potential tracks in coming days.

Andrew

2 comments:

Shawn said...

I am really hoping the track is where it needs to be so that the heaviest snow includes where I live! :)

Could this be a strong storm kinda like the one in October?

Frank-o said...

I.......Will be watching this one for sure, we here in North Carolina finally got from 8 to 22 inches of snow out of the last monster out of Gulf two weeks ago. Here at zip code 28659 we got 12 inches....Would love to see another one just like it!!