- Dr. Barry Lynn
WEATHER: Could It Really Snow?
Illustration: Rainy Day by NadyZima_klgd via Pixabay
Is it a sign when it seems to rain only over your own house? One wonders what one has done to displease those who order and deliver our weather each and every day.
Highlights of the week ahead include some rain, chilly weather earlier today on Shabbat, followed by a quick warm up, and then an end of the season winter storm with heavy rain, strong winds, and... snow?
After another chilly day on Shabbat, the temperatures will spike upwards into Monday night, when they will fall rapidly into Tuesday. Precipitation should arrive late Tuesday and continue into next Shabbat.
Along the way, temperatures will chill-off further as we move into Wednesday and Thursday. At the moment, about 30% of the Global Ensemble Forecast System (GEFS) members are predicting temperatures cold enough for a heavy snow.
However, there are some caveats. Overall, the atmosphere as a whole will be on the mean colder than any other storm so far this year, which means that wet snow would be more likely to occur even if surface temperatures are above freezing in, for example, Jerusalem. Yet, the Canadian and European ensemble forecasts do not quite bring the coldest air as far south as the GEFS. Less cold air means lower chances for a snowy end to our winter.
Forecasts after motzei Shabbat will hopefully tell us more about the details of our upcoming storm.
Image credit: The Jerusalem Herald
Dr. Lynn is a lecturer at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Earth Sciences Department. He is also CEO of Weather It Is, LTD, a company that specializes in reducing weather risk. Click here to read more of this writer’s work in The Jerusalem Herald.
