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Forecasting snow

Posted at 7:06 AM on November 28, 2007 by Paul Huttner

It's one of the most difficult forecasts we make as meteorologists.

Snow.

When will it start? When will it end? Will it be heavy and wet, or dry and fluffy? And, of course, how much will we get?

All snow systems are not created equal. There are several different types of weather systems that produce snow in Minnesota. We blather about Panhandle Hooks and Alberta Clippers, but they really do have different characteristics, and different results for how much ends up on your driveway.

One thing these storms tend to have in common is the heaviest snow band often sets up about 60 to 100 miles north of the track of the surface low. At 7am this morning our weak Alberta Clipper is centered just north of the Twin Cities. Note the snow bands north of the low center in northern Minnesota on this surface plot below.

Minnesota surface map

As you can see the snow totals for northern Minnesota fit pretty well with the expected storm path.

Northeast MN snow totals

Saturday a different set up will shove warmer moist air over our cold dome near the surface. We call this overrunning, and it can produce widespread snow which can be heavy. If the map below "verifies" for Saturday, we could see heavy snow this weekend.

GFS Model run noon Saturday

Stay tuned!

PH

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