April Snow Showers Bring May....?

While all is quiet here in the Brazos Valley, the Northeast, especially Pennsylvania and New York continue to experience a rare late April snow storm. As of this afternoon, snow continues to fall at a heavy clip along the Allegheny Mountains in Pennsylvania. Laurel Summit, located in western Pennsylvania picked up over 18 inches of snow, and the crazy thing is....it continues to snow there. I would not be surprised if their final total ran around 22 inches. Look at the Doppler Radar image from this afternoon, the snow is not going anywhere until late tonight.....

This was all part of a dynamic storm that climbed up this east coast this past weekend. Several low pressure centers were associated with this storm, but it was the upper level low that is sitting over Pennsylvania which drilled in the cold air allowing precipitation fall as snow. Furthermore, the upper level jet stream bowed down into the southeast further enhancing the chilly air that spread along the Appalachian Mountains and adjacent coastline.

When meteorologists forecast, not only do they look at what is happening at the surface, they look at the upper level features as well. Typically, what happens in the upper levels translates down to the surface. This is one of the reason why we follow the jet stream so closely because its the largest barrier between warm and cold air. There are other factors involved with this upper level feature, but separations in air masses are the biggest component.

As cold as it is in the east, the center of the country, including the Brazos Valley continuously sees a bright sky overhead as a strong ridge of high pressure remains in charge.

Under this ridge, which happens to be part of an "Omega Blocking Pattern" will slowly move east with time. If you are not familiar with an Omega Block, basically this is an upper level pattern where the strongest winds way above the ground have the shape of the Greek letter omega. This is a slow moving weather patter where the calm weather is in the center of this block, whereas the western and eastern sides are cloudy, cold, and damp.

Expect our weather to be warm with barely any bumps in the roadway. Any storms that from in the Rockies this week will ride up and around the High Pressure center, steering the rain away from us. By the way, we could use more rain because since April 3rd, Easterwood Airport recorded only 0.17" of rain. Finally, due to this type of atmospheric set up, heat will begin to build under this ridge. Therefore, the days will get hotter and more humid throughout the week. When I say heat, I am talking about triple digit heat in West Texas where some locations could top off around 105° to 107°. Now that's hot.......

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