Wintry Weather Is Coming

I want to welcome everyone to a La Nina winter, which means ice and lots of it. And as your going to find out that's exactly what we are going to get for the end of the week. First off take a look at the sounding from the 18z NAM.

The red line represents zero degrees Celsius, the blue line shows temperature, and the green shows your dew point. Since the dew point and temp are so close you can almost bet that precipitation is falling to the surface. Now the fact that it's completely below the zero line means this sounding shows snow falling at K12N (Andover Airport) just 57 hours from now. But as the day goes on the snow will quickly change to sleet, to freezing rain, and end as a little bit of light rain. I can't speak for the national weather service but I wouldn't be surprised if they issue a winter weather advisory for minor ice accretions.

If you live about 1,000 feet then I would really be concerned for ice lasting till the afternoon hours on your Thanksgiving Day. It's going to be a mess. Perhaps we can see a few snow showers on the back side of the system as well. Since the QPF (total precip) amounts are around 0.20 inches during the "wintry" portion of the storm don't expect much in the way of sleet or snow accumulations. Although I can see how an inch or less can fall before the change over.

Big snowstorm chance around the 1st of December, let's hope it won't be ice. Although I wouldn't be surprised...

P.S. The cold air behind this system looks rather weak from what the models were originally showing. Nonetheless I believe Mountain Creek will be able to open up on time this year on December 11th.