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Southern Ontario Winter '14-'15 Discussion


harrisale

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In 2007-08 we saw two storms at or above 30cm. The Dec 15-17th one and the early February storm. I noticed SSC didn't include that in his list. The most recent one is the Feb, 2013 storm. The Feb 2014 storm was a close one. 

 

Dec 2007, was 30cm+ downtown, but not at YYZ. Feb 2008 was 30cm+ at YYZ, but not downtown. When tabulating Toronto snowstorms, I always use the downtown data because of the measuring issues at YYZ. But I'm not going to throw a YYZ storm into the list because it's favourable. It unduly inflates the list.

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Yeah, it's about 15:1. Another tick to the north would help in getting those better dynamics near the sfc to help with dendrite production. Here's the sounding:

 

attachicon.gifyyzbufkit.jpg

 

Yellow line represents the DGZ, grey line is the uvvs (the more to the left the line goes, the better the lift). Not quite intersecting.

 

Nice appreciate it. Wouldn't be surprised if we saw some deformation bands esp. if the storm can track just 50 or so miles further north. 

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Dec 2007, was 30cm+ downtown, but not at YYZ. Feb 2008 was 30cm+ at YYZ, but not downtown. When tabulating Toronto snowstorms, I always use the downtown data because of the measuring issues at YYZ. But I'm not going to throw a YYZ storm into the list because it's favourable. It unduly inflates the list.

 

Oh i see your point. The Dec 2007 storm was underestimated at YYZ as was the March 08 blizzard. Had they not been, I'm confident it would have been the snowiest Winter on record. We just needed 15cm i believe. Oh well. Compared to DTW, we do see bigger storms overall.  

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Wow amazing. 15-20cm would be a repeat of that Dec 11th storm which i wouldn't mind at all. What ratios are we looking at? 15:1 sounds reasonable. 

 

Something I learned in my met classes was that snow ratios are super tricky to pinpoint (since they aren't constant during an entire event) but the best way to identify it is to look at sounding (Tephigram, Skew-T, pick your poison) and look at the pressure levels displaying near saturation. If there are multiple points of saturation, take the point with the highest temperature. Then use that temperature to estimate your ratio.

 

-16C --> 25:1

-14C --> 23:1

-12C --> 17:1

-10C --> 12:1

-8C --> 10:1

-6C --> 9:1

 

Based on the GFS it seems like we hover around -12C at the max saturation pressure levels (850-700 mb) for the juicy part of the precip, with some -14C rates at the onset of precip. I'd say 16:1 is probably a better ratio off the 12Z GFS only. 

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Something I learned in my met classes was that snow ratios are super tricky to pinpoint (since they aren't constant during an entire event) but the best way to identify it is to look at sounding (Tephigram, Skew-T, pick your poison) and look at the pressure levels displaying near saturation. If there are multiple points of saturation, take the point with the highest temperature. Then use that temperature to estimate your ratio.

 

-16C --> 25:1

-14C --> 23:1

-12C --> 17:1

-10C --> 12:1

-8C --> 10:1

-6C --> 9:1

 

Based on the GFS it seems like we hover around -12C at the max saturation pressure levels (850-700 mb) for the juicy part of the precip, with some -14C rates at the onset of precip. I'd say 16:1 is probably a better ratio off the 12Z GFS only. 

 

Wow nice man. It would be great if you could do these kinds of analyses more often.  Temperatures at 850mb look to be around -15 to -17C  and -11C to -13C at the surface during the heaviest rates. Alot of moisture feed going into this storm with a strong jet streak in the upper atmosphere (300mb). A slight shift northward could mean huge differences in amounts so hoping for that. 

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If I've learned anything about these south-sliders, it's to not discount areas along the 401. Time after time I've seen models show a steady gradient loss north of the city with systems like these, only to see a juicy deformation band hug the 401 the entire event.

 

I hate to say it, but I kind of like the uncertainty with this thing. I only wish it were hitting at a different time of day... it looks like this is going to be at its peak during the overnight hours on Sunday night/Monday morning.

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Oh i see your point. The Dec 2007 storm was underestimated at YYZ as was the March 08 blizzard. Had they not been, I'm confident it would have been the snowiest Winter on record. We just needed 15cm i believe. Oh well. Compared to DTW, we do see bigger storms overall.  

 

Dec 2007 was fine at Pearson. I only measured 22cm in my backyard. They were similar. Downtown racked up 30cm+ because of enhancement off Lk. Ontario.

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Chris Scott:

 

Chris Scott @ChrisScottWx 6m6 minutes ago

Increasing confidence that #Toronto itself will get slammed by #onstorm Sun night-Mon morn. WON'T be a case where the downtown escapes

0 replies 9 retweets 4 favorites

 

I dunno about "slammed". Very unlikely we get the type of foot plus amounts that may occur in Hamilton/Niagara, but at least he's raising awareness about this storm more than EC is with their bury their head up their ass approach to forecasting.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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Chris Scott:

 

Chris Scott @ChrisScottWx 6m6 minutes ago

Increasing confidence that #Toronto itself will get slammed by #onstorm Sun night-Mon morn. WON'T be a case where the downtown escapes

0 replies 9 retweets 4 favorites

 

I dunno about "slammed". Very unlikely we get the type of foot plus amounts that may occur in Hamilton/Niagara, but at least he's raising awareness about this storm more than EC is with their bury their head up their ass approach to forecasting.

 
This. It seems to be a running theme with EC.
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

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I think there is too much to fight to the north for this thing to clobber the GTA. 10-15 cm will be disappointing if everyone else scores big.

 

I don't think I'll feel the same way. Dec 2014 storm dropped a nice 20-25cm over us, no one else saw a flake. Feb 2013, 30-40cm for us, virtually no one else in this subforum saw anything more than a few inches. It happens. I'm glad we're getting sloppy seconds rather than nothing at all.

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