Current Conditions at Sanborn Field

 

 

 

Friday Night: Partly cloudy. Low: 18

 

Saturday: Chance of flurries, windy, mostly cloudy. High: 32

 

 

Saturday Night: Mostly clear. Low: 20

 

Sunday: Sunny. High: 40

 

   

Sunday Night: Clear. Low: 25

 

 

  

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Discussion: 

As St. Patrick's Day comes to a close, our overnight temps are rather unfriendly, sitting in the upper teens (or even lower if you catch a wind gust), but a gentle warming trend looks to follow afterward, with highs jumping to the mid to upper 40's by Sunday. We could see a few errant flakes of snow here and there on Saturday, but nothing more. Have a great St. Patrick's Day Mizzou!





Thomas

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Forecasters: Thomas, Sausen, McGuire

Date Issued: 03/17/2023 4:20 PM CDT

Technical Discussion:

 

Visible Satellite imagery shows a thin layer of altocumulus clouds overhead, making today a mostly sunny day. Surface winds are 15-20kts as of Friday 20Z. This forecast will use the 12Z run of the GFS due to its vastly superior accuracy with regards to local temperatures compared to the NAM. Low temperatures combined with northwesterly winds is the main focus of this forecast alongside the chance for snow flurries Friday night.

At 250mb, the CWA sits at the left entrance region of a considerably strong jet streak maxing out at approximately 145kts. It then moves off eastward on Sunday 03Z, leaving us in a very de-amplified, positively tilted longwave trough through the rest of the forecast period. Winds are zonal.

At 500mb, the low-pressure system in the Great Lakes Region will bring a couple bands of high vorticity through the CWA on Saturday 03Z through Sunday 21Z. Winds are zonal, but particularly strong, with maximum winds hitting 80kts.

A small area of high RH at 700mb will make its way through the CWA Friday 21Z to Saturday 09Z. Winds are of a northwesterly component throughout the forecast period.

Winds at the 850mb level are out of the northwest until they shift to the southwest with the passage of an anticyclone along the Texas-Oklahoma border on Sunday 18Z. Plenty of CAA will be brought through from the north, making temperatures colder at the surface. A weak LLJ with winds at 45kts will position itself to the north. The layer will become relatively moist with RH values ranging from 70-99% until Sunday 06Z.

Surface winds remain out of the northwest at 10-15kts keeping conditions cold and windy until a southerly switch occurs Sunday 18Z with the passage of a surface high to the south. There is consistent solenoid formation in conjunction with the northwesterly winds, which will keep temperatures cold until the wind direction change.

GFS model soundings show a moist layer on 06Z on Saturday with temperatures remaining below freezing throughout the vertical profile. This indicates the potential for some scattered snow flurries, but the depth and duration of the moist layer is thin and short-lived. The DGZ is also not moist enough to support the growth of any large dendrites aloft, eliminating the chance for any real heavy snowfall to occur.

This forecast utilized combined model output from the GFS, NAM, ECMWF, and NBM. NBM spread was rather tight, and the greatest difference between model outputs did not exceed 4 degrees Fahrenheit. NBM output was also used to forecast cloud cover.

 -Sausen