A potent storm will crash into the pacific northwest coast beginning Tuesday. Moisture will be moving into the area on Wednesday with cold air in place over the region we could get some nice high ratio snow from what would normally be a storm that favors NW flow.
I don’t remember which storm it was but we had a similar setup recently. The models were at odds of how far south and west the low would drop in. This is important because if it drops into southern Nevada and tracks across the Grand Canyon area it will be a favorable track for all of the mountains at different times in the storm cycle.
The GFS model is notorious for trying to move storms across the country too quickly. The Euro is the opposite and it favors deepening a low over the west and slowing it down across the country. So which do you choose? The Euro model is usually more successful in its approach when there is an existing pool of cool air over the region. Areas of low-pressure love to hang out for a while in cold air, it can end up creating long periods of stormy cold weather, similar to what I was talking about yesterday.
The Euro’s further south track has been noticed by the NWS and with another mid-week Holiday and the travel that accompanies it, I expect a Special Weather Statement by Monday and advisories by Tuesday for the Northern and Central mountain areas and possibly the northern San Juans. If the models converge to a more southerly track with a period of SW flow enhanced by the jet, everyone wins. If the track stays north of us we could still all get a couple to a few fluffy inches due to the cold air.
The cold air is here, below zero low temperatures tomorrow morning will be more common than above zero readings. Next update Monday.