UDPATE: Check the update below
OK, I’ve made you wait long enough.
Here’s the deal. Tonight. Very Cold. Friday. Cold Again (and Sunny!)
Saturday… lets look:
The GFS is telling us around 10cm will fall between Saturday and Sunday afternoon, most of it Sunday.
The Canadian Model says much the same or maybe a little more.
Our area is shaded for 10mm of precip, which is roughly 10cm of snow.
The key about this is that it will be a southerly flow. That means two things,
#1: It will try to bring warm air in… this could quash any hope for snow, but with temperatures as cold as they are now, and as cold as they are supposed to get, there is a pretty good chance that that cold will stick around for quite a while (much like it did way back in November. That seems like foreever!)
#2: As we know so well here, when it rains, it pours. That southerly flow is what gives us the constant rainfall, or in this snowfall, so this is when we have the best chance of getting the most accumulation of snow.
So for the weekend, I’d give a 40% chance that we see more than 10-15cm of snow, especially in the Beaver Creek and Sproat Lake areas.
UPDATE
Wanted to include these forecast images as well.
The first pulse, Saturday afternoon to Sunday Afternoon. Notice the little green bit around us? I’m betting that that should actually be blue… 10cm of snow.
The second pulse, Sunday to Monday… notice a complete lack of green. Should all be cold enough for snow, potential for another 5cm.
____
Moving on.
Next week it has been consistently “interesting” ever since the models could reach that far. The main gist is continued cool weather. But that’s not enough, because we’re going to get wave after wave.
The green bars below start Monday afternoon and continue in waves until Thursday afternoon. Below it is the temperature, the line is freezing, so you can see we remain at or below freezing basically all week.
I’m thinking that this week is going to end up pretty messy. There is going to be lots of wet snow around, potential for freezing rain on Sunday and Monday, and the biggest shot of snow and likely rain on Tuesday night.
And this last image is for Eve.
Our week wouldn’t be complete with the possibility of some wind!
What that big mess of lines of colors is tellings us is up to 40-50knot (purple, 90kph) winds off of the West Coast (where they’re all pointing the same way) which should translate into the possibility for 50-60kph winds here in the Valley.
So there ya go. It’s gonna be darn cold tonight… it’s gonna snow, it’s gonna sleet, it’s rain, and it’s gonna be windy. It’s gonna be fun!
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8 responses to “UPDATE: Could be a Weekend or Week to remember?!”
O.K. …………….Treeale, there is nothing untoward meant by this! CHRIS…..I LOVE YOU! That is thee most wonderful forecast that I could ever hope for……….Bill, you might have tried that and then I might have given you the same “Weather Affection” …Now I can sleep tonight and anticipate tomorrow. Thank you! Good night and HAPPY WACKY WEATHER! (forecast anyway)
Now that’s a forecast! Honestly Eve, I could see the potential for cold, white, wet and interesting, but Chris breaks it down with way more detail! Enjoy the sunshine tomorrow!
Glad you guys liked it! If it all pans out the way it could be, could be a lot of fun!
Thanks for the update Chris, I was looking at those images as well. Beautiful outside this morning!
I enjoy reading all these weather comments I love wacky weather too. Thanks Chris for all your daily updates.
Chris…the forecast looks great and I believe your interpretation before that of the Weather Network and Environment Canada. Having said that, why is there often a discrepancy in forecasts between you three? Are different computer programs used to interpret the data or is it person who looks at all the data and then makes a proclamation? Thanks!
LOVE IT!!!!!
Hi Rob!
Well, number #1 I would say be careful relying on any forecast from me… it’s only a hobby and I have no formal training whatsoever in meteorology. I try to remind people of that every once in a while, so thanks for giving me that opportunity. 🙂
The nature of our geography here… how the Pacific Ocean interacts with the mountains, valleys, islands, and interior inlets makes, I think, for a very challenging place to come up with a forecast. It’s not like the US Midwest where all you really have to do is figure out if the weather will fly over top you or not. Here there is so much more to deal with, especially in the active months between October and May.
The Weather Network generally relies more on computer models as they are based out of Ontario. No doubt someone interprets them, but they are far from local and don’t have any human resources out here that I know of aside from what they can piggy back off Environment Canada. You’ll notice that the Warnings on TWN always originate from EC.
Environment Canada relies more on local (Vancouver) human forecasters, as well as reports from severe weather watchers and other resources like lightkeepers and airport observers with the help of computer models for the forecasting.
Weather forecasting is as much art as science and what is truly critical in a place like Port Alberni is knowledge of local patterns and tendencies.
I would always defer to Environment Canada above all for an official forecast but they do have a hard time sometimes because they just don’t have the resources here in the Valley anymore.
If I could reset the clock, maybe I would go back to school with the intention of becoming the Alberni Valley forecaster and observation recorder for Environment Canada. But there just isn’t money for that anymore and that’s a darn shame.
So long story short, I know nothing… I only pass along what the computer models are saying and combine with the little I know about local weather patterns after growing up here.