Ethan's Winter Weather Update

Ethan’s Winter Weather Update

Special Update

WM Companion Senior Meterologist Yang Li here. Channel 7 Eyewitness News has inrecased their prediction to 3-7 inches for our area, the East End, Nassau County, most of the city, and parts of New Jersey. Snow will begin around 8-10 PM Monday evening and continue into Tuesday morning. 7 inches definetely increases the chance of a snow day, but models are uncertain, leading to such a greater range for predictions. Still, even 5-7 inches won't necessarily give us a snow day, as it is only early December. If it were to increase to 4-8 or higher, I would put a likely sign up. Only 8+ inches would dictate a definete snow day. Guaranteed delayed opening in my opinion though. Signing off...

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

While not strictly educational related, for these special circumstances I invite all website contributors to post things they think may be relevant to possible school delays/closings. Here is a forecast for tomorrow night into Tuesday morning (Yang, edit this as you see fit):

Accuweather.com has updated its snow forecast for our area and puts us withing a possible snowfall range of 3-6 inches over Monday night and into Tuesday morning. This is due to a jet stream that is dipping further south, meaning that more moisture will be headed to our area, as well as colder temperatures, meaning more snow and less rain/freezing rain. A snowfall of 3-6 inches continuing well into Tuesday morning means a much greater likelihood of a delayed opening, but still not enough for the district to fork over a snow day this early in the year.

WM Companion Senior Meterologist Yang Li's Forecast (see above for more recent information)
Perhaps it's best to begin with last night's bit of snowfall. Perhaps some of you think this is the first storm of the season. For those of you away during Thanksgiving, that day was in fact, the first snowfall of the year. Whatever's left of today's 2 inches should be melting as you read. A sprinkle of rain during the day will only help to eliminate the snow pack. If anyone woke up early and looked at the snow in progress, you can see what a mere two inches can do. That's worth one good delayed opening and we all know how much we'd like to wake up later on a weekday.

Right now we're looking for the low pressure system in the Midwest to swing down to southeast and then follow the jet stream into the Atlantic Ocean, moving south of us. As some of you may remember from Earth Science, much of the precipitation from such a system is carried along the pressure gradient bands that focus into central depression of low pressure. Therefore, the north wing of the storm will move right over us. The intensity that we're going to see depends entirely on the track of the center of low pressure. It's simply matter of how far it is from us, which a direct relationship between pressure and intensity.

News 12 LI predicted 3-5 inches at most last night. Channel 7 Eyewitness News said 2-4 inches. At this time of year, that's not enough for a snow day. I remember such amounts giving us snow days years ago during January, February, or March. However, the district won't do that now because it needs to reserve snow days for the heart of the season. Look for a delayed opening, which they're free to deal out as much as they want. The only chance of a snow day is if computer models intensify the low pressure system sometime between now and Monday night. That has happened before when a 3-5 or 3-6 prediction went to 5-7 at 10 PM, right before the storm came in. That was three years ago. Let's have it happen now. This is WM Companion Senior Meterologist Yang Li, signing off.

Ethan, edit this as necessary