winterstormwarningThe buzz in the weather community is the developing storm this weekend across the Northern Plains. I want to start by saying this is NOT our storm for the Mid Atlantic, but a focus on Chicago. They are part of a region under a Winter Storm Warning. This storm will help drag down colder air over the weekend, but we won’t get snow from this. However, tracking the storm will give more insight to how storms closer to us this winter will behave. Remember when the Ravens made the playoffs? It’s like watching the other teams they would face next to see how they stack up.  Winter is like our playoffs as forecasters.

The storm will be racing off of the Pacific and not an El Nino event, but rather the result of a warm phase of the Pacific Decadal Cycle (PDO). This PDO is a piling of arm water along the eastern central and northern Pacific Ocean and can send storms into the northern US like a sling shot. These fast moving storms often push farther east than computer models account for, and as we are seeing now, will travel farther east before making the eventual turn north. The result looks like Chicago will stay on the colder side, and in turn could get more snow. Compare the latest forecast model below and expected snowfall increasing over the National Weather Service outlook posted yesterday.

Why is this important to us?

I see tracking the trend of the storm to the east as a way to anticipate the track ahead of the models. Basically there will be a lot of late adjusting of storm tracks to the east due to faster upper level winds. Think about all of the adjustments to Hurricane Joaquin track that at one point was gong to hit the east coast. Coastal storms may have a tendency to skip off the coast. However western storms may have a better chance of hitting us, or shifting initial warm tracks to the east, that can bring us wintery mix or snow. So this doesn’t mean we get all overachieving snow storms, but that watching the tracks of those storms verifying farther east than first thought will be the trend.

Storm Timeline: GFS Model

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Compare the latest snow projection form the GFS Model to the National Weather Service office in Chicago outlook yesterday. Chicago is slated around 10 inches of snow.  Note that some warmth from Lake Michigan could limit that locally like our Chesapeake Bay does:

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National Weather Service Maps From Thursday:

Snow projection for heavy snow is farther north based on older tracks (before the adjusted east and south push)

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Closer View On Chicago


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Snow Showers For Us?

The upper level pattern does NOT support it for Sunday, but a clipper on Monday may make the push farther south with a chance of flurries.

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Turning Colder:

We will get a dramatic cool down, after the storm. This will last into Thanksgiving, then trend warmer at the end of the holiday weekend.It will be chilly for the Ravens game on Sunday with highs in the 40s. Much different than 64F last Sunday. We could get back to 60F on the weekend after Thanksgiving.

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Related Winter and El Nino Stories:

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El Nino Winters Mean Extreme Ice (low and high) On Great Lakes

Strong El Nino Brings All Or Nothing Snow in Winter

El Nino Snow And The Baltimore Orioles

El Nino 2015 Is Too Big To Fail

El Nino growing stronger and could last into winter 2016

El Nino 2015 Compared to 1997 By NOAA: Strongest On Record?