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Sunday – 5 Feb 2023 – 4:00pm
The past…
At Stevens Field the high temp this afternoon was 47. The low this morning was 12. The peak wind at the airfield was 9mph.
| Average High | Record High / Year | Average Low | Record Low / Year |
| 41 | 60 / 1963 | 3 | -32 / 1915 |
Precipitation summary… There has been no measurable precip in the last 24 hours.
Forecast discussion…
Rest of today… The ridge will move to our east and more mid and upper level clouds will move in this evening. Winds will gradually increase through the afternoon.
Lows tonight will range from the low teens to low 20s.
Tonight through Monday… The next low pressure system will move through. It will track west to east – a decent track for us. However, it will be weakening and won’t have much moisture. My expectations for snow are low.
The first few snowshowers will start over the mountains after midnight and in the valley 5-6am – they’ll be spotty. The best chance for snow is sunrise to sunset tomorrow but it will continue to be spotty. Snowshowers will linger over the mountains until midnight.
Highs on Monday will be in the low to high 30s and lows will be mid-single digits to high teens.
Winds tonight will peak around 20mph out of the southwest, and then drop to 10-15mph during the day tomorrow, and increase again Monday evening into the 15-20mph range out of the north.
Snow forecast…
Valley: 0-2”
Mountains: 3-6”
Tuesday through Sunday… I expect the rest of the week to be dry in the valley with a slight chance for spotty snowshowers over the mountains Wednesday night and Thursday. I’d be surprised if an inch falls in the mountains.
Tuesday and Wednesday highs will range from the mid-30s to low 40s, and lows will range from the mid-single digits to high teens.
Thursday will be a little cooler with highs in the low to high 30s and lows will range from zero to the mid-teens.
Friday highs will range from the upper 30s to mid-40s and lows will range from the high single digits to high teens.
We’ll warm up a bit over the weekend with highs in the low to high 40s and lows in the low teens to low 20s.
Winds will peak in the 10-15mph range each afternoon, except for Thursday which will peak in the 15-20mph range.
Long range outlook… The long range models continue to expect the pattern to get more active starting around the 13th.
The Euro shows 1.17” and the GFS has 1.15” – that’s amazingly close for a 15-day forecast. 10:1 ratio snow would result in around 11” of snow over the whole period.
Let’s start with tomorrow’s system. Euro and GFS both have around 2.5” while the Canadian has around 1”. Based on everything else I’ve looked at, I agree with the Canadian model on the first system.
System #2 is roughly late the 12th through the 15th. Snow amounts range from 6-9”. This is more than 7 days out so I’m more concerned with model trends than exact amounts. So far, I like the trend.
System #3? All three models expect another system but vary considerably on timing and amounts. This is typical of forecast models this far out and a good example of why we call it “fantasyland”.
Mark will take over tomorrow.
– Shawn
