Snow Forecast: How to Forecast Snow in Tricky Environments
Snow can be either hard to forecast, or relatively easy, long-term or short-term. Learn more about it here…
Millions of Americans check to see how much snow they will get yearly. Sometimes the forecasts are spot on, and others are off by a bit. But just like every other weather phenomenon, snow can be hard to forecast. In this post, learn more about how forecasters predict how much of this special type of precipitation will fall.
This post is all about the snow forecast.
Crucial Snow Forecasting
Snow Forecast Maps
The first section of this post will be about snow forecast maps. This might be the most popular way to forecast precipitation amounts over a large area. These forecast maps could use information from just one model, or multiple. One example of a snow map is above. It shows how much precipitation is supposed to fall in inches, which is called total precipitation accumulation. One thing you notice with these maps, which is noticeable with this one, is that it also takes elevation into play when making these amounts. You can see how the precipitation is significantly higher in the mountain ranges than in other places.
Snowfall Prediction Models
Many companies use many types of snowfall prediction models to show to their customers. Most weather models have some form of snow measurement built into the model, like the one above, called the GFS. These weather models are the ones we use to forecast snow. Different agencies and companies have combined some of the models and adjusted their models to their liking.
El Nino Snow Forecast
This is one of the most popular searched terms for snow forecasting, and even though it just says “El Nino” in the search, it looks like it means both El Nino & La Nina so I will briefly cover both. The snow patterns for an El Nino in the U.S. are usually snowier in the southern half of the nation and the plains. For the La Nina pattern, on the other hand, it is found that it is quite the opposite, with the northern half getting more.
Snow Forecasting
Many things go into snow forecasting, for example, you have to know that the precipitation that falls will be snow, and not rain or sleet or some other type. Methods to determine this are in place and are in use. Then, you have to find out where the storms will happen, they will occur in this area, that area, or both! How much will fall and how long will it be falling for? Forecasting snow is a complicated process that takes a long time to get very accurate, just like many other ways of forecasting. Hope you enjoyed this post!
