LANSING, Mich. — Winter storm systems are full of hype from social media. Most content creators just want clicks and likes, how do you know what's real? Well, let's discuss what we know a week out...
First thing first, we'll never issue snowfall totals more than three days out max. Even that could be walking a fine line should the storm system shift in track or intensity. The bottom line is that our technology is no where near good enough to forecast that far out with the accuracy we crave for making plans. We can get a general idea of what might happen within 5-7 days out. The fine details, however, will mostly likely always remain at 72hrs or less. Most of our high resolution models that can pick up on finite details only go 48-72hrs out anyway.
Ok, back to the situation at hand - this social media hype-fueled storm system. As of now a very large-scale storm system will likely develop and impact much of the eastern United Stated between Tuesday and Wednesday of next week. Those dates are January 9-10th.
Some models are showing more snow, others are showing more mix and rain, some are showing everything in between. NONE are showing a purely snow system that is easy to forecast. It appears we will likely start off with some snow and transition over to rain as temperatures warm up. This would virtually melt anything that falls and leave us with much easier travel conditions. Then, as the system moves east, we get the cold air and more snow wrapping around the back side of the system. Winds will likely gust over 40mph as well. That's not fun either way.
The storm system is not even on this continent yet. It needs to move over the Pacific Ocean, swing around a low pressure in Alaska, over a high pressure, dip into the southwest and hook back up to the Great Lakes. Then, it needs enough cold air to fall as snow. So, it's possible, but a lot needs to go right to be the big ol' blockbuster snow storm we're seeing irresponsible folks post all over social media.
Keep in mind climatologically speaking most storm systems that are on the stronger side usually range between 8-12" in the Great Lakes. So people posting models showing big numbers are buying into bad data, bad snow ratios, or combining several storm systems worth of snowfall together.
As of now, we just watch and see what happens over the next several days. There's not problem with dreaming, but let's all take a deep breath.
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