Canadian Weather Blog

Share |

Late-Week Snow Event in the East

Jan 18, 2012; 1:50 PM ET

Just put together this initial snowfall forecast map for the storm tracking from the Mississippi Valley to the Middle Atlantic coast Friday into Saturday.

There is still a lot of uncertainty with the track and intensity of the storm, so adjustments to this map will almost certainly be made over the next day or two.

This will not be a big storm by January standards, but when you look at this winter so far, it could end up being a bigger story.

Due to the quick movement of this storm, I would tend to favor the lower end of the 8-15 cm range across southwestern Ontario at this time.

--------

Western storm ongoing......

Very long, plume of moisture (bright colored infrared clouds) directed into the Pacific Northwest from just north of Hawaii.

Snowing fairly hard as of this writing across parts of eastern and southern Vancouver Island with the help of the cold air picking up moisture as it moves across the relatively warmer waters of the Strait of Georgia on the northeast wind. Light snow in Vancouver with a temperature only 7 below zero celsius as of 9 a.m. Just to the east, Abbotsford, BC, stuck at 12 below zero celsius.

Web cam image of the Thetis Island Ferry Landing in Ladysmith, BC (southeastern Vancouver Island)

Return to milder conditions is delayed for the Lower Mainland of BC until Friday morning. Significant storm will bring rain and possible flooding to Vancouver Island and the Lower Mainland Friday afternoon into Saturday morning. A chilly, but wet pattern shaping up into next week for most of BC. Ski country should be smiling!

----

Last night's eastern storm tracked a touch farther north, leaving Ottawa with more ice and sending Montreal into a two-hour thaw. As the cold front came back through Montreal, there was a gust to 100 km/h! Down here in Pennsylvania, the front also came through with strong winds, and I lost power for almost two hours just after midnight.

The so-called NE U.S. and eastern Canadian warm-up that was supposed to take hold next week is not looking so warm with each new computer run. We can probably put some of the blame on the Arctic Oscillation trending more negative next week, which makes it hard to have any sustained, major warm-up.

The views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of AccuWeather, Inc. or AccuWeather.com

Comments

Comments left here should adhere to the AccuWeather.com Community Guidelines. Profanity, personal attacks, and spam will not be tolerated.

More Brett Anderson

  • Updated Long-Range Model Forecast

    May 8, 2012; 10:42 PM ET

    Here is my latest interpretation of the weekly ECMWF long range model forecast that now goes out into early June......

  • El Nino Southern Oscillation Update

    Apr 18, 2012; 2:32 PM ET

    La Nina was barely hanging on as of early April and the transition to neutral ENSO conditions in the equatorial Pacific region should be complete by the end of this month.

About This Blog

Brett Anderson
Brett Anderson covers both short-term and long-term weather and storm forecasts for Canada in this blog for AccuWeather.com.

AccuWeather.com Bloggers

5/28/2012 11:11:25 PM /blog-entry.asp 6 .75.106 (accuweather)-- [new]