Tuesday February 28th, 2012: Winter Storm Tracker

The storm is on it's way, as indicated by falling barometric pressures throughout the day recorded by the metstation on top of Phillips Hall.

I elected not to update my post from last night, because there wasn't enough data to make an updated  prediction. As for today there have been some serious developments in the storm that developed in Eastern Colorado yesterday. To start things off I am going to show you an upper air mass map depicting conditions at the 300mb level.

I want you to look at the area in blue on the map, this is the path that low pressure system is going to take. So why am I showing you a map at the 300mb level? Well this level is just below the Tropopause and there is a lot of jet-stream activity at this level, which makes this map excellent for locating storm tracts. All of you who are praying we get dumped on tonight, hold on a minute before you start drooling over the swath of blue moving across the map. Let me say I am completely with you, but there is something happening that may thwart our hopes for some huge accumulation of snow. Let's take a look at what it is.

 First it is important to understand that as this low pressure system moved of eastern Colorado it has been sucking warm air from from the Gulf of Mexico. This is what is causing the SE winds of 8mph and a warmer temperature of 32 degrees Fahrenheit. If winds don't shift to NE winds like in north western Minnesota and North Dakota we will be be on the warm and mist side of this pressure zone. What does this mean? Well it means we probably won't see much snow, rather we will experience some pretty brutal ice and sleet. If the low pressure zone moves to far north of Eau Claire we will just experience a lot of rain.

For us with high hopes with snow, what conditions are necessary...
Well for starters we need to see that wind direction shift from SE to NE pretty soon. If you are just looking for a day of off school, you could be in luck. The wind may shift enough to get some serious ice, sleet, and maybe a little snow mixed in the salad as they say. When I look outside I am seeing pretty much 100% alto-stratus cloud cover and they are low and thick. This is indicating some precipitation soon that 15 hours most definitely. I have been watching a flag outside my house and have noticed the wind is moving around quite a bit. An indication that wind direction is going to change would the development of some cirrus clouds. So all of you dreamers pray for snow and watch for the wind direction to shift to NE winds!

Note: As this a really phenomenal day for weather, I will definitely update the blog later on tonight and most likely more than once! Come back periodically to check for updates!