Ingredients are coming together to produce a potential major winter storm across southeast Michigan Tuesday night into Wednesday night. Considering that this is still several days away and the energy that will produce the snowstorm is still out over the west coast, the track can change, but as of right now it is looking good. Let’s take a look at what is happening and what we can expect.
Looking at the first image below, you can see an upper level trough approaching the west coast. This system will track through California and into the south. To the north in Canada, there is a rather strong shortwave that will be simultaneously moving south into the U.S. This shortwave dropping south will do two things to the upper level trough. The first is it will interact with the trough, causing the already strong system to further intensify. The second is it will cause the heights at 500mb to drop over the west, causing the trough to steer to the northeast in our direction. This is represented on the second image. The heights at 500mb drop when cold air moves into the region and the height lines (the black lines on both images) can act (along with upper level winds) to steer systems.
Image courtesy of the University of Washington
Image courtesy of the NWS
So we’ve established that a strong system will be moving into our direction, but will it have enough moisture to work with? The answer is YES! This is because there will be plenty of moisture from the Gulf of Mexico being pumped northward into the system. Looking at the image below of winds at 850mb, it shows that there will be plenty of moisture moving into the U.S. with northerly winds at 25-30kts (30-35mph). With this much moisture available, this system will have a rather large area of precipitation over the eastern half of the U.S.
Image courtesy of RAP
So now we’ve established that a strong system with a lot of moisture will be moving into our region, but what will be the exact track? Well that is the biggest uncertainty right now and it will make the biggest difference on what we experience from this storm. Below are the scenarios that I can see happening depending on the systems track.
Worst case #1: Its track will be really close to Michigan putting us in the warm sector. This would result in rain or mix precipitation. Major disappointment.
Worse case #2: It will take a more southern track and southeast Michigan will either get missed all together or we’ll only get a couple inches out of this system. Another major disappointment.
Best case: It will track somewhere in between putting southeast Michigan in the heaviest area of snow (if you haven’t noticed yet…this blogger favors snow).
It is looking more and more like we will get all snow out of this storm, and a lot of it. It is still several days away so a lot can occur that would influence the track one way or another. For example, the shortwave that will be dropping down from Canada will have an influence on the track depending on how far south it drops. Another example is behind this shortwave will be a pretty strong high pressure system. This high pressure system and its anticyclonic (clockwise) flow will prevent the track from moving very far to the northeast and it will help to cut off precipitation totals rather sharply the further north you go. This could be a problem for us if the system takes a more southern track.
Image courtesy of RAP
The image below shows the position of the center of the low pressure system based on this mornings GFS model run. As you can see, the center of the low is expected to be in southwest Ohio on Wednesday morning. This is a good position for all snow (and heavy snow) for our area.
Image courtesy of PSU
This is a good position because the area of heavy snow is to the north and northwest of the systems center. The image below is a diagram that represents the types of precipitation depending on the location relative to the low pressure system. If what is shown on the GFS image above holds true, then as the storm tracks away from us, we’ll be in the region of heavy snow to the northwest of the low.
Image courtesy of PSU
I will write another posting tomorrow or Monday with more details on what to expect and when.
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