Comments on: Mild, mostly dry week ahead; indications of colder weather by early the following week

By: Doug Griggs, SW ROA County, 1420 Ft

Doug Griggs, SW ROA County, 1420 Ft — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 04:43:09 +0000

It is also extremely warm for 11:30 PM on Dec. 2nd. 57* here now. I call it a bit of a make-up for the cold November. But I will be paying for it within about 9 days at most.

By: Kevin Myatt

Kevin Myatt — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 04:25:45 +0000

The fact that we saw any raindrops reach the surface tonight makes this an overperforming system. Says something about how dry it is when sprinkles constitute an overperforming weather system.

By: Doug Griggs, SW ROA County, 1420 Ft

Doug Griggs, SW ROA County, 1420 Ft — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 03:55:15 +0000

The GFS NAO outlook shows roughly the same sort of movement as the ensembles. Warmup for the next few days, all the way into positive levels on the GFS 7-day, but then a dive into quite negative numbers about a week from now according to both the GFS 10-day and 14-day graphs. The last day of the 14-day GFS NAO graph has the NAO going fairly deep sea, all the way to nearly minus 2.

By: Doug Griggs, SW ROA County, 1420 Ft

Doug Griggs, SW ROA County, 1420 Ft — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 03:51:01 +0000

Finally, the NAO. It will hover slightly positive (a tiny win for us snow haters, before we probably start to lose) for roughly the rest of this week (at least according to the red spaghetti strands in the attached link to the Ensemble NAO outlooks). The link: http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/pna/nao_index_ensm.shtml Then the NAO joins its friend AO and returns to its months-long home in negative territory. Look at the right side of the 10-day and 14-day graphs.

By: Doug Griggs, SW ROA County, 1420 Ft

Doug Griggs, SW ROA County, 1420 Ft — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 03:45:05 +0000

And still more good news for the 90%: AO GFS outlook: http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/daily_ao_index/ao_index_mrf.shtml Going diving again. Also reflected in the big majority of spaghetti strands on the AO Ensemble outlook: http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/daily_ao_index/ao_index_ensm.shtml All of the multi-day graphs there all show a continued run in minus territory for the AO, although not quite as negative as what it was Friday and yesterday. Lower than -2 then.

By: Doug Griggs, SW ROA County, 1420 Ft

Doug Griggs, SW ROA County, 1420 Ft — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 03:36:30 +0000

A bulletin for you cold and snow lovers. Christmas may be coming about 12-15 days early. Take a look at the Ensemble PNA Outlook: http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/pna/pna_index_ensm.shtml . Many of the spaghetti strands are going into positive country in about a week or so. That is also reflected at the end of the 10-day and 14-day ensemble graphs. The GFS is not one of the models predicting an increase all the way into positive levels, but at the very end of the 10-day and 14-day GFS PNA outlooks, the last day practically gets to zero. Anyway you slice it, the PNA’s run of several weeks in negative territory seems to be ending. Tolleris and Myatt predict.

By: Doug Griggs, SW ROA County, 1420 Ft

Doug Griggs, SW ROA County, 1420 Ft — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 03:29:32 +0000

Dear HokieTrax, getting only enough rain to make your car dirty is what I call adding insult to injury.

By: HokieTrax (West Hokieburg 2091')

HokieTrax (West Hokieburg 2091') — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 02:31:49 +0000

It tried to sprinkle in Hokieburg this evening, enough to streak all the dust on my car and make it look really dirty.

By: Doug Griggs, SW ROA County, 1420 Ft

Doug Griggs, SW ROA County, 1420 Ft — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 01:40:37 +0000

Dummie Dougie should have looked at the list of snow-cover records first. January 1966 had the 4th-longest streak at Roanoke and 5th longest at Blacksburg. And last few days of 1967 and of course many days in JAN 1968 was the longest streak at Blacksburg. Weird, because 1967-68 was the one light year for snow of my high school years, and we had an early spring that year, too. But 1968-69 must have been not too bad down here in SW Virginia.

By: Doug Griggs, SW ROA County, 1420 Ft

Doug Griggs, SW ROA County, 1420 Ft — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 00:51:54 +0000

Speaking of snow cover and big snow years, how big were the snowfall totals for Blacksburg and ROA during the 1965-66 and also the 1968-69 winters? I was in high school (those winters were my freshman and senior years, respectively) then up in eastern Mass. and both of those winters were huge up there. Especially January in 1966 and late January and most of February in 1969. It took what seemed like forever for spring to arrive after those two winters. In fact, the entire winter of 1969 was enormous, because I remember having a job for a couple of weeks around Christmas in 1968 at a grocery store and they had created a monster snow pile of at least 16 feet in the parking lot.