Current Conditions at Sanborn Field

 

Friday - Overcast. Cold and Windy Conditions. High: 10-14.

Friday Night-  Overcast. Wind Chill Advisory in effect. A slight chance of evening flurries. Low: 0-4.

Saturday -  Mostly Cloudy. Frigid and windy conditions. High: 6-10.

 

 

 

Saturday Night - Mostly Cloudy. Cold temperatures with strong winds. High: -2-2.

Sunday - Overcast. Snow starting in the morning. Evening temperatures approaching record lows. High 4-8. 

 

 

 

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Discussion: 

 

Frigid cold and windy conditions will persist across Mid-Missouri throughout the weekend. Due to these extremely low temperatures and high winds, the National Weather Service has issued Wind Chill Advisories until noon CST today and from 9 pm this evening to noon CST Saturday. Moisture approaching form the west is causing cloudy condition with a chance of evening flurries later tonight. Over an inch of snow is expected to fall beginning on Sunday morning, as well as, evening low temperatures are predicted to approach the record low of -5 degrees.  

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Forecaster: Hefner, Bongard, Ozdas

Issued: 10:00 AM CST 12 February 2021

 

Technical Discussion (The nerdy stuff we are discussing in class)

 

 

For this forecast period we went with the GFS model as it was handling initial conditions, specifically temperatures better than its NAM counterpart which is running warmer than what we are observing this morning with surface observations.

For this forecast the biggest issue will be how cold will it get this weekend. NWS AFD's are suggesting record low temperatures for this region as a continental artic air mass invades the central CONUS. There is also a chance for snow at the tail of the forecast period.

Aloft, at 250-mb we start off zonal over central Missouri with a jet streak to our northwest. This is in response to a large upper level trough over central Canada that will slowly amplify over the weekend as a shortwave riding the flow traverses the Rockies and pushes into the northern Plains by Sunday evening. 

The area will be void of vorticity and much vertical motion for the majority of this weekend according to 500-mb analysis as the air mass dives into the region by Sunday morning and really begins to influence temperatures in the Midwest. The shortwave mentioned above will advect vorticity into the region right as the forecast period comes to a close 21Z Sunday.

The low level moisture profile is dry as expected due to bitter cold temperatures. CAA at the low levels will help drive temperatures to near below 0 Sunday morning. With winds out of the north at 10-15 knots we expect to see wind chills in the -15 to -20 F range. This will likely prompt additional Wind Chill Advisories and maybe even Warnings in Missouri as the weekend comes to a close.

Snow chances Sunday morning increase as the shortwave approaches from the west. Model soundings so a saturated profile by 15Z with temperatures and dewpoints well below zero just above the surface. This leads up to predict light snowfall Sunday morning with accumulations near an inch by the end of the forecast period.