Say It Ain't Snow

Well, I finally caught up with my shoveling. I've been neglecting it for a few days and unfortunately, it seems I've waited too long because the junk at the end of the driveway turned into a big block of ice. The plow has been by a few times to add to the rigid, wintry mess and I'm thinking it's a lost cause at this point. I don't know about you, but I'll probably have to wait until the end of winter to uncover the bottom of the driveway. For those of you who take pride in having a nicely manicured driveway/walkway keep those shovels handy, flurries and light snow showers will continue off and on through the weekend, but won't really cause much of a commotion until late Sunday - Super Bowl Sunday.

The image below shows the accumulated snowfall through Monday night. Firstly, note the bulls eye over Washington DC - There could isolated amounts of 30" by the end of the weekend. This will be quite an event, bringing the city to a stand-still. At least it's happening over the weekend... although, I think there will still be some issues into the early part of next week. We are likely to see some light accumulations here in Minnesota, enough to shovel and plow again, but it'll be coming over the span of a few days, unlike that of the quick hitting heavy snow out east.


QPF - Quantitative Precipitation Forecast
This is the QPF forecast from NOAA, which shows the accumulated liquid through Wednesday night. This extended model shows nearly 0.70" liquid (there will be some wiggle room on that number), but temperatures will be cold enough this next week for all snow. A quick a dirty rule of thumb for snow forecasting is 10:1 - which means that for every 1" of liquid water, you'd have 10" of snow. If you do the math on that 0.70" of liquid - you get some fairly decent accumulations. Again, these are just preliminary numbers, though, one thing that might keep the hassle factor lower with this potential snow is that the snow is likely to fall in increments of an 1" or 2" over a few day period. Keeping up with the snow on roadways and such shouldn't be a major ordeal.


A Quick Side
I thought this was kind of neat - thought you'd enjoy it. This is a satellite (US military’s DMSP - 18 weather satellite) image of a Northern Lights display over northern Europe from earlier this week – note the yellow band at the top of the picture – that’s it! Cool, huh?



Todd's Outlook for St. Cloud

Today: Mostly cloudy, a few flurries possible. High: 25

Tonight: Cloudy with a few flakes. Low: 14

Sunday: Another period of light snow, about 1" of powder possible during the day. Steadier light snow developing overnight, another 1" to 2" possible. High: 23

Monday: Cloudy with light snow showers likely, light accumulations possible. High: 18

Tuesday: Cloudy with a chance of snow. High: 16

Wednesday: Decreasing clouds. High: 15

Thursday: Partly cloudy and chilly. High: 16

Friday: Partly sunny, slightly warmer. High 21