Tuesday Morning: Next 36 Hours Should Bring Clarity

Good morning. Quick post today as I am going to be very busy. Overall most of the operational models have not been overly impressive in their last two runs. Including the European they have been showing the storm moving more to the south and off the coast. This would mean a minimal impact on our area. Here is an example of the gfs..

The canadian and European are similar. However, lets take a step back here and look at the ensemble spread for the GFS and Canadian...

The red numbers are low pressure centers for the different ensemble runs and the areas that are in darker shades represent the "spread". The spread is basically saying alot of the individual ensembles members are further to the west of the ensemble mean. Translation, there is a high degree in uncertainty in the track of this storm, and it could trend west.

 I am going to pound the table here and remind everyone that we are 132 hours out from this storm threat! Of course the models can be right in saying this is a weaker and offshore storm but accepting that as the end all be all scenario at this time would be premature.

 No, not just because I want it to snow, but I really like this pattern for the reasons I discussed over the last week. Also, we all know that until the energy comes onto the field tomorrow the models really do not have a handle on how this situation will evolve. The ensembles above are telling us that! We need more clarity on how and if the northern stream will be amplified enough and phase with the southern stream. Some of our best storms are the ones that trend at the last second from minimal events to major threats. Will that happen this time? I have no idea but I think the smart thing to do here is see the trend over the next day and a half. Once we get to tomorrow afternoon I believe we can determine if its worth throwing in the towel or getting excited.

Stay tuned, I will update on twitter today if I can.