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Thanksgiving Weekend Lake-effect Snow

OSUmetstud

By OSUmetstud,
in Upstate New York/Pennsylvania

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Wx4cast

Wx4cast

Posted
Posted

I was googling to see if I could find a chart of the Delta-T Lake Index that I have in the office. So far no luck but I did "discover" these 2 nuggets for LES forecasting. Maybe of interest to newbies in particular:

Griffiss AFB Lake-Effect Snow Study and Lake Effect Snow Forecasting for Southern Lake Michigan

both links are to PDF files so you'll need a PDF reader.

Here is some more info on LES:

Lake Effect Snow

Lake Effect Snow Forecasting Page

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NYWx

NYWx

Posted
Posted

Bear with me here..I don't know the geography and I'm a newb with LES stuff.

So,when you say Tug Hill...any towns I should target? I know Tug Hill refers to a geographical area of towns, right? To the locals...any towns/hotels with good wifi, lol

Nevermind..I saw you specifically listed Redfield.

The Tug Hill is an ancient eroded plateau with elevations rising to over 2000 feet. Not much by western standards but when you consider the elevation of the lake is around 400 feet, that's quite a bit of extra lift and frictional convergence with the relatively shallow depth of lake effect unstable layer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tug_Hill

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ayuud

ayuud

Posted
Posted

I was googling to see if I could find a chart of the Delta-T Lake Index that I have in the office. So far no luck but I did "discover" these 2 nuggets for LES forecasting. Maybe of interest to newbies in particular:

Griffiss AFB Lake-Effect Snow Study and Lake Effect Snow Forecasting for Southern Lake Michigan

both links are to PDF files so you'll need a PDF reader.

Here is some more info on LES:

Lake Effect Snow

Lake Effect Snow Forecasting Page

thanks that helps alot!:thumbsup:

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kulaginman

kulaginman

Posted
Posted

From my estimation...it appears that the latest guidance is calling for a Buffalo southtowns (Silver Creek, Angola, Orchard Park area) and northern Tug event on Friday (260 850mb flow) follow by a shift to the Chautauqua Ridge, Ski Country, and south off of Lake Erie on Saturday and a southern Tug Hill, Oswego, Wayne, and Onondoga County type thing off of Ontario.

The most difficult thing IMO to predict will be predicting band placement off of Lake Erie on Friday...where bands can creep just a bit further north than modeled and surprise the immediate suburbs and the city. I think reasonably heavy snow on Saturday is a slam dunk for the traditional snow belts.

This does not have the makings of an "epic" event IMO due to too quickly shifting winds and the lack of a very deep unstable layer that we saw in the dec. 95, nov. 2000, oct. 2006, feb. 2007 type events.

Nice analysis, and I generally agree with everything you've said here. The only thing I'm worried about on Friday is a potential lack of moisture in the dendritic growth layer, which might cause the Lake Erie band to become rather "anemic" at a time when h85 winds would favor band placement in/near the BUF metro area. It does look like there will be a strong punch of mlvl dry air in the wake of the cold front before deeper moisture circulates in later in the day. I haven't really had time to look very closely at bufkit cross sections, but this will be something to watch for IMO.

I do think things are looking pretty golden in the Friday night / Saturday morning timeframe, and I'd be getting pretty stoked if I had a place on the Chautauqua Ridge right now. This looks like a very solid early season event down in that direction.

Again, I'll be spending the holiday weekend at 1150' on the Orchard Park / Boston line so you guys will get a play-by-play for your's truely as the event progresses :thumbsup:

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cleetussnow

cleetussnow

Posted
Posted

Bear with me here..I don't know the geography and I'm a newb with LES stuff.

So,when you say Tug Hill...any towns I should target? I know Tug Hill refers to a geographical area of towns, right? To the locals...any towns/hotels with good wifi, lol

Nevermind..I saw you specifically listed Redfield.

You can take i--81 straight north most of the way, and then go east on 90 until Utica and you can take a more inland parellel route up rt. 26. This goes north and south, and you can find a central location to bed down, and then travel to the snow bands. You could stay in lowville, then get to barnes corners, montague, etc - its all nearby. Be careful NOT to rely on a GPS 100% in there in winter because some roads are seasonal, and you could be in 2 feet of snow sudenly and thats bad. most marked major roads are no problem however. I will cop to having done this so I know from experience. Thanks to my excellent 4WD truck, even with a trailer, I got out no harm no foul.

There are places to stay along route 26 because this is snowmobile country. It is a real nice road. You can totally find food, towns, etc all along 26.

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cleetussnow

cleetussnow

Posted
Posted

The Tug hill encompasses The area south of Watertown in Jefferson county, eastern Oswego county, most of Lewis County, and the Northern and Northwestern tip of Oneida county...The major towns are Parish, Barnes Corners, Martinsburg, Rodman, Montague, Redfield, Osceola, Lewis (west Leyden), Adams, Lyons Falls, Turin, Constableville, and Lowville. There are a few places that have wifi...one of them is called the The Edge Hotel in Lyons Falls.

A+++ on the edge hotel

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kulaginman

kulaginman

Posted
Posted

Am I crazy or I do I see a much stronger SW component to the winds friday, saturday as per the 12z gfs. Me thinks this actually streams some mositure into the ADK during the period.

If you look at the isobars, there is definitely more "troughiness" evident in the vicinity of Lake Huron on Saturday...and that may cause a little more backing to the flow downstream across Upstate NY. I'm not sure if it'll be enough to force the winds to become southwesterly, but it may be enough to cause more of a west rather than a west northwest wind for the balance of this event. Saturday could be quite a day on the Tug Hill.

Could also be a bit of a WINDEX event for non-LES areas on Saturday if that little shot of DPVA comes to fruition on the latest gfs. That could vanish with the next run though.

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OSUmetstud

OSUmetstud

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If you look at the isobars, there is definitely more "troughiness" evident in the vicinity of Lake Huron on Saturday...and that may cause a little more backing to the flow downstream across Upstate NY. I'm not sure if it'll be enough to force the winds to become southwesterly, but it may be enough to cause more of a west rather than a west northwest wind for the balance of this event. Saturday could be quite a day on the Tug Hill.

Could also be a bit of a WINDEX event for non-LES areas on Saturday if that little shot of DPVA comes to fruition on the latest gfs. That could vanish with the next run though.

The UKMET has significantly stronger low-level winds than the other models...50-55 kt @ 850mb...too strong for my liking. It deepens the low to 977 mb north of Lake Huron. Also significantly slower than the other models and last run...doesn't have fropa until just before 18z Friday.

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DeltaT13

DeltaT13

Posted
Posted

The 12z GFS continues to turn this into almost a non-event. Since it will be the first wintery outbreak of the season though, it will still be fun, but no one should waste too much time and energy chasing. During the time period of greatest delta T's and best aligned winds, the low levels look very dry which is not good at all, there also appears to be some mild low level shear to deal with. I'm thinking one transient band that starts around the metro area in the pre-dawn hours of Friday and fizzles south through the day into Saturday night with the whole show being over by Sat Am. Kind of a sad realization....but were getting there.

I could forgo the snow if it was just cold enough for them to start making snow at the local resort.....I'm dying to get out there.

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OSUmetstud

OSUmetstud

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The 12z GFS continues to turn this into almost a non-event. Since it will be the first wintery outbreak of the season though, it will still be fun, but no one should waste too much time and energy chasing. During the time period of greatest delta T's and best aligned winds, the low levels look very dry which is not good at all, there also appears to be some mild low level shear to deal with. I'm thinking one transient band that starts around the metro area in the pre-dawn hours of Friday and fizzles south through the day into Saturday night with the whole show being over by Sat Am. Kind of a sad realization....but were getting there.

I could forgo the snow if it was just cold enough for them to start making snow at the local resort.....I'm dying to get out there.

I don't know man..looking at the UKMET and the ECMWF...the moisture isn't spectacular by any means...but it isn't terrible. The UK and ECMWF both spit out significant precip, especially east of Lake Ontario.

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Tornado Girl

Tornado Girl

Posted
Posted

I don't know man..looking at the UKMET and the ECMWF...the moisture isn't spectacular by any means...but it isn't terrible. The UK and ECMWF both spit out significant precip, especially east of Lake Ontario.

I agree...this looks to be a 24" + event for some spots east of Lake Ontario......I think a blend of 45% ECMWF,35% UKMET, and 20% GFS worked fairly well for this event...at least so far.

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OSUmetstud

OSUmetstud

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Can someone post a link to the map that shows the liquid forecast for the lake effect event, or is that one of the ones that cant be posted?

12z gfs

gfs_p60_144l.gif

ecmwf maxes out at about 18 mm (.70") east of Lake Ontario.

the ukmet maxes out around 1" east of Lake Ontario.

Keep in mind these are global models and they aren't going to resolve the mesoscale precip maximums of the bands well.

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Andyace

Andyace

Posted
Posted

FWIIW Here are some soundings and a T section from this mornings GFS 12z 22/Nov Run for Lowville:

Full Tsec:

Here is the SAME Tsec but "blown-up" for the forecast period from about 84hours thru 168 hours:

Soundings for Lowville, time/dates on the upper right:

Wow what does this mean for dummies like me? can you do one for northern Oneida county?

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kulaginman

kulaginman

Posted
Posted

I don't know man..looking at the UKMET and the ECMWF...the moisture isn't spectacular by any means...but it isn't terrible. The UK and ECMWF both spit out significant precip, especially east of Lake Ontario.

I think Delta was mainly referring to Lake Erie. The gfs has very negligible QPF in that part of the state, probably due to a lack of moisture in the dendritic growth layer. The delta-T's aren't quite as high as they are over Lake Ontario, and the inversion height may be slightly lower...but it looks to me as if moisture is the big limiting factor. Again, this is taking the gfs ver batim...so I'm not sure I'm buying into it.

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Wx4cast

Wx4cast

Posted
Posted

Wow what does this mean for dummies like me? can you do one for northern Oneida county?

Just realized aren't you like on your honeymoon or something like that?

Anyway here's your requested info for Forestport...It is from the 18z GFS and only runs thru 120 hours.. 00 hour would be today 22 Nov 1PM est 120 hour is Sat 1pm 26 NOV. TBH this run looks not as good for LES for you. Any divorce or annulment proceedings that result are also not my fault either. :arrowhead:

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Andyace

Andyace

Posted
Posted

Just realized aren't you like on your honeymoon or something like that?

Anyway here's your requested info for Forestport...It is from the 18z GFS and only runs thru 120 hours.. 00 hour would be today 22 Nov 1PM est 120 hour is Sat 1pm 26 NOV. TBH this run looks not as good for LES for you. Any divorce or annulment proceedings that result are also not my fault either. :arrowhead:

Thank you, like I said I will be happy with ground whitening.

Not on my honeymoon yet, I was supposed to get married on 1-1-11 but my father inlaw was diagnosed with terminal cancer in June and we moved the date up because of his health.

My wife was well aware coming in, of my weather ocd.

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