CLEVELAND — The buzz has grown all over social media over the last day, especially from "social media-rologists" who proclaim a major weekend winter storm with crippling snow and ice. In reality, will there even BE a storm? Power of 5 Meteorologist Allan Nosoff is an expert in long-range analysis, explaining the realistic expectations at this early stage in the forecasting process in this video:
Don't have 10 minutes? Here is the breakdown on what you need to know and need to look out for from the Power of 5 team, the rest of the week.
As of the initial analysis on Monday, it is a 99% virtual "lock" that a storm will form this weekend and travel across the eastern United States. Saturday is five days away, and Sunday is six days away. At this stage in winter forecasting, meteorologists look at the trends and confirm if a storm will form or not. So, knowing that a storm will happen at this stage is a bit ahead of schedule, but not uncommon when the storm could be really strong.
Despite the early certainty on a storm forming, there are a lot of uncertainties at this early stage in the winter forecasting process. One of the big wildcards is the Polar Vortex, of which a piece is expected to break off and drop down to the Great Lakes this weekend. The strength of the Arctic cold will help determine the storm track.
There is a saying that is gaining popularity in the last few years across the weather community: "too cold to snow." How is that possible? Isn't cold the key ingredient for snow, cold? Too much of a good thing is a bad thing in this case.
The overwhelming weight of the cold air pressing down onto the Great Lakes would force any storm south. If the cold air really wins out this weekend, there could be snow and ice in cities like Houston and New Orleans!
On the contrary, if the cold air is present but not overwhelming, that would bring a northerly storm track that favors heavy snow across Ohio. That is an ENORMOUS range. There is still a lot to analyze, and important weather data will not arrive until Thursday, when our storm energy arrives on land and can be sampled by weather stations and input into computer models.
Bottom line — there will be a storm this weekend, and it has a higher-than-normal chance of being a major storm. Where does it go? Will it drop six inches or two feet? These are the questions for which the answers will be unlocked around Thursday.
Stay tuned!
