We officially have a winner for the second one inch snowfall of the season! BWI recorded its first inch of snow for this event at 11PM on January 12th, and we had a tight finish between Patricia Bramson, Ryan Enck and Stacy Cashmark. Although no one picked the 12th, all three prognosticators were within a day of the storm, but Stacy was the closest with a 10AM guess on the 13th compared to Ryan’s 8PM guess, and Patricia was closest on the other side with a guess of January 11th at 3AM. Congratulations Stacy! Hopefully our next big snow falls during a Caps game and after I shovel your driveway, we can watch and celebrate a Caps win while the school closings scroll across the bottom of the television screen.
So yesterday’s storm delivered in a big way, but not entirely in the way I expected. The warm air advection portion of the storm was well-forecasted and delivered a general 4 – 5″ across the region Saturday night. On Sunday morning, I expected that the coastal development would provide additional snowfall but that never really developed. However, the upper level low that moved across the area in the evening was incredible, but only for areas from I 70 south. Just north of 70 there were total accumulations from 3 – 6″, while just 10 miles to the south, there were over 1 foot totals reported in Howard and Montgomery counties. Even Reagan airport, notoriously known for low snow totals, finished with over 10″ while BWI reported around 7″. In any case, it was a great storm and one that will have lasting impacts for several days, especially on morning commutes with daytime melting and overnight refreezing.
Looking ahead, the pattern change that was being advertised on the long-range models a couple of weeks ago is occurring and that means more winter weather for our area. For at least the next two weeks we can expect more storms and more arctic air intrusions. That doesn’t always translate to snow for us but our chances for more accumulating snow events is higher than normal for the foreseeable future. The first opportunity is this Thursday night into Friday morning, and then a more significant storm is possible over the weekend. Models are all over the place right now, so I’ll wait a day or two before delving into details.
The Weather Mill 