Christmas Blizzard

[Wild and Free]

December 20 - 10:15 AM
WINTER STORM LIKELY IN NORTH-CENTRAL U.S. THIS WEEKEND, BUT A LOT OF UNCERTAINTY THIS FAR OUT.
What is this graphic, you ask?
...It’s a 500 mb vorticity forecast for Wednesday morning, which is a measure of spin of air parcels. In this case, it’s close to 3 miles above the earth’s surface. The circled area is a vorticity maxima, which in part will form our weekend storm system. By Wednesday morning, this will be roughly a THOUSAND miles west of Alaska! The upper-level energy won’t even reach the West Coast until early Christmas Eve.
Nothing could go wrong with snow forecasting, right?!
A trough in the jet stream is going to dig across the western states late this week, which in turn, will form a strong surface low that developed from upper-level energy which originated west of Alaska. Wow, that’s a lot!
Meteorologists interpret messy-looking graphics like this. Computer models have advanced and improved exponentially the past several years. But when we’re looking at something in the atmosphere several thousand miles away, we can only forecast a trend, not specifics. As the weekend gets closer, the specifics get narrowed down.
The trend calls for a winter storm, especially Christmas Day into Monday. Computer models have been consistent the past two days seeing this trend. The rest is just a guess this many days out. Some models are forecasting a major storm with over a foot of snow. Is that possible? Yes. Is it reliable to broadcast snowfall forecasts? To me, absolutely not. Even if the models get it right, it was still just a best guess given the latest data this many days out. If you roll the dice, sometimes your predicted number is rolled. Sometimes not. To say the potential is there would be accurate. The key is “potential”.
Meteorologist Kevin Lawrence

 

[Mort]

Geeezzzz, I go work for few hours and come back to something about a Christmas blizzard possiblity...huh...I seriously hope which ever weatherman put this out was drinking...we get 30 degree for two maybe three freaking days and all of the sudden we gotta another blizzard on the way....cmon man....lol

 

[Jigaman]

next thing you know your daughter is knocked up, and money is missing from your dresser

I've seen it a hundred times....

- - - Updated - - -

If I end up delivering my son and wiping up the mess with hot stuff pizza napkins, I'm going to be angry.

 

[Joe]

Yay, stranded with in laws, 2016 cannot come to an end soon enough.

 

[Brian Renville]

I'm supposed to be headed to Fargo saturday and back sunday, might not be pretty. I hope the gas station hot stuffs stay open I might need a steady dose of pizza.

 

[Allen]

It still has a long ways to travel to get here.

 

[badland mule]

It still has a long ways to travel to get here.

First the Russians mess with our election now they are going to mess up our Christmas? Why haven't we nuked the shit out of them yet?

 

[johnr]

Its the damn Russians again?

Hillary was right.

 

[Walleye_Chaser]

Damn Russians....this is getting serious now.

 

[Yoby]

Its the damn Russians again?

Hillary was right.

Did you throw up in your mouth a little after writing that?

 

[Retired Educator]

If I end up delivering my son and wiping up the mess with hot stuff pizza napkins, I'm going to be angry.

I'll apologize right up front. But when you reach my age where such a scenario is no longer possible, that did bring a chuckle. Probably more like an outright laugh and snort. Hope it doesn't happen to you but the visual is funny to me.

 

[luvcatchingbass]

Its the damn Russians again?

Hillary was right.

Whoa easy on saying Billary was right, this makes me wonder about your mental state right about now. Maybe you need a time out, now go to a corner and think about what you just said with a few bush lights to de-fog your judgement

 

[Bed Wetter]

Ahhh, bring the dog with

Good thinking. That dog will tear the blizzard to pieces.

 

[watson]

Somewhere within the red shaded region? So somewhere within 8 states there is a chance of a storm?, now that is precise

 

[jdinny]

the first I saw of this was yesterday and Dakota storm trackers had it on facebook about resembling the 2009 xmas day storm that dumped 23" in minot.

however Dakota storm trackers have been far from accurate this year. they predicted 4-6" for bis last Friday and maybe got an inch. I know this far in advance its just a dam guess but it seems they wanna be the first one to put it out there regardless if there right or not.

I certainly hope we don't get what there is potential for. I heard SEND doesn't have much snow we better change that with this one.

 

[BDub]

Hopefully the possible storm will go straight to Minnesota. They voted for the Hildabeast.

 

[jdinny]

I just found a little clip about it on the weather channel app. complete with multi color images of snow fall amounts and they have eastern ND in pink ( heaviest) central ND including Bismarck/83 corridor in heavy purple ( which is heavy snowfall) and lesser amounts west and south.

 

[dean nelson]

It's OK. Dean told me there's nothing to worry about as no meteorological scientist and/or weather pontification algorithm can possibly predict anything with accuracy beyond 24 hours ahead of an event.

So we're definitely, probably, most likely in the clear.

Maybe.

;:;popcorn

Well considering when we were talking about it yesterday the storm wasn't even over the pacific yet and was still moving through Russia north of North Korea yeah it's not possible to make an accurate forcast so the guys who make the real forcast and warnings don't even try. They won't be able to zero in on it till it makes landfall and the real refinement won't happen till the low pulls out of the four corners area and clears the mountins.

 

[Duckslayer100]

^^^^ SEE?? Told ya. Mean Dean is on the scene.

 

[johnr]

Your right, I am sorry guys. Hillary is wrong, and is always wrong. I think I might have been roofy'd