Super Bowl Weather

Weather for Super Bowl Sunday may not be considered super for many in our area, but it will be weather. 

A potentially sloppy mess by the time the game begins in the evening.  I feel confident about this forecast, but there are a couple of scenarios that would change things.

1. Heavy precipitation stalls the warm air advance (has happened before) and we stay as snow until it lightens up. This would give us 2-3” more of snow. POSSIBLE but UNLIKELY
2. Warm air transport is much stronger and arrives earlier changing snow over to rain by early afternoon. This would cut our snow totals in half. POSSIBLE but UNLIKELY

 
I think, based on climatology (what historically has happened in cases like this), the 2” is close to a given. Often when going from snow to ice to rain we historically get 1-2” of snow on average. Every case is a little different, and this one is since we have a very weak low to our north, and a weak low to our south which raises the possibility of slowing the warm air advance, and thus the change to rain.  

The 4” is the upper range given due to the uncertainty of the time of changeover.  But once it changes over to sleet/rain and then some drizzle, there is little doubt that we won’t have some kind of sloppy mess on our walks, roads, drives, etc. If you can, say half time … clean your walks, drives … it might be a good idea, because it will be cold Monday and the messy stuff will freeze. Easier to move sloppy than frozen.

Since we will enjoy this one so much, why not do it again?  And instead of a moderate amount of moisture how about tripling it?  Sound good?  Great, because that is what looks to happen Tuesday night and Wednesday. There are some differences though …

1. No northern low pressure passing NW of our area.
2. Low pressure will track south of us.
3. Loads of moisture from Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic will be available.
4. High pressure in some form will be north of us anchoring the cold air, making it harder to dislodge.
5. Warm air will be trying to push north as low approaches.

It all points to a potentially heavy snowfall, or heavy/flooding rainstorm, or some heavy snow with cold nasty rain on top.  No matter what, it will drop lots of moisture on us.

No need to worry, once we get through Super Bowl Sunday’s storm, we will have ample time to prep for this next one.

Enjoy!