Looking ahead with 7-10 day weather forecast models, from Gary McManus, Oklahoma Climatological Survey

Source: Gary McManus, Oklahoma Climatological Survey:

These storm systems show up in the forecast models 7-10 days out, if not longer, and therefore my entire existence becomes somewhat moot until they actually hit. The worst is when they look magnificently wet on the long-term only to get slowly whittled down as they get closer. That’s sort of what has happened with the storm scheduled for the coming weekend. We went from about 5 inches of rain and 18 inches of snow for the state a couple of days ago to now just a good beneficial rainfall. Here is the 7-day rain total forecast from this morning.

http://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20130304/7day-rain.gif

Here is what it looked like in its last awesome manifestation from last night.

http://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20130304/7day-sunday-night.jpg

So it appears to have shifted to the north a bit. The good thing is it is still offshore of the Pacific Northwest and can change for the better between now and then. The trouble is it can change for the worse as well. Still some good rain on that map, but you can tell why I wanted that rain now, before it could shift.

Even at its current forecast output, it’s a very welcome sight.

We still have plenty of snow to melt up in the northwest, however, so that’s like having rainfall in the piggy bank. Interestingly, I don’t need to look at a satellite picture to find the snowpack. The Mesonet does a pretty good job of that by itself. Check out these temperature maps and see if you can tell where the deepest snow has stuck around.

Here are the highs from yesterday (hint … look for blue!)

http://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20130304/yesterday.max.temps.png

82 degrees down in Hollis.

Certainly much better than the 46 degrees up at May Ranch, where the snow is still deep enough to keep things in the deep freeze. Here are the current temperatures.

http://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20130304/current-temp.png

 

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