Sunday Technical Discussion

Synopsis:  Scattered showers are roaming across the commonwealth this morning, some of the showers might not be reaching the ground as dew points are in the 30's and low 40's.  Two major storms will be heading towards the Commonwealth this week, with the second one packing the punch into the forecast.  Temperatures will be mild up until the second storm, when they will go below normal for the rest of the week.

Short-term:  The storm that plagued the Four Corner's region of the United States is finally being caught up in the Jet-Stream, both the GFS and NAM show this, and this will be our first storm of the week.  The NAM shows scattered showers with one or two thunderstorms on Monday, while the GFS just has its normal "it's going to rain" shadings going on.  We went with the NAM on this case but instead of scattered thunderstorms we went with scattered showers with rubble of thunder.

Long-term: Tuesday will be the transition day as we clear out from one storm and begin to prepare for the next.  This second storm will be diving out of southwestern Canada and will be already having major impacts on the United States.  As it dives out and crosses the upper mid-west it will only strengthen into a major storm.  The GFS at one point has the low reaching below 964 mb, the NAM has the storm deepening to below 980 mb.  Once again we decided to follow the NAM on this case (nice try GFS).  But never the less, both models show that a powerful cold front will be making its way through the Commonwealth on Wednesday with major cold advection occurring behind it.  It looks to us that the high temperature for Wednesday will occur in the early morning hours, and only decrease during the day once the cold front moves through.  With such a great pressure gradient, the winds will start to pick up in intensity during the day on Wednesday, but will only last until Thursday.  Wednesday looks like the last day of mild temperatures for the Commonwealth.  Thursday, the winds will be from the northwest, combine that with warm lake temperatures, the model (GFS) is hinting at Lake-effect showers to start fueling up.  We took this bait, and forecasted that the Lake-effect prone areas will have this weather while the rest of the state will see sunny skies.  Temperatures are now below normal.