Saturday, April 2, 2011

April 4th-5th -The Everything but the Kitchen Sink Storm

When friends or my colleagues on TV ask the following: "Are we done with winter?" OR "When will be done with winter?" My reply is: "Most years by April 15th we can hope that winter is behind us."

So since we have only just started the month of April we still have the potential of some fairly significant storms. As the thermal contrasts remain high between land and sea and various parts of the U.S. (having warm or hot temperatures and other areas winter-like cold) the potential for storm development exists.

This looks to be the case for the early part of next week during Monday and Tuesday the 4th and 5th of April.

Spring storms can often produce a wide range of weather conditions and elements in their transit over a particular region and this upcoming storm looks to be no exception.

Here's what I am expecting from this storm (it will be a MULTI-hazard system):

HAZARDS

SNOW/SLEET: Late Sunday night & early Monday morning. Expect potential for at least a couple of inches especially the across the Adirondacks, Catskills and Lake George areas before changing to rain during Tuesday morning.

RAIN: Warm front moves across the area by late Monday afternoon. Rain along and north of the warm front could be heavy tapering to showers with its passage across the area.

POSSIBLE FLOODING: Heavy rainfall along with warmer temperatures approaching 60 degrees if not warmer in some places could cause both increased snowmelt and heavy rain could lead to runoff all leading to potential for some flooding in poor drainage areas, low lying spots and on some rivers and streams.

STRONG possibly DAMAGING: Strong winds are possible during 3 "time periods". With the warm front could see strong SE-S winds developing with its passing and passage through the area. Usually strong south winds do not "reach" the valley floors but often they do impact the higher elevations. For now will go this route and say elevations at or above (AOA) 2000 (2K) feet could see gusts 35-40 mph by early Monday morning.

The second time period for strong winds will be during late Monday afternoon or evening. Gusty S-SW winds may occur over the area once the warm front moves through; however the better chances for strong SW-W wind gusts could be early Tuesday morning as the cold front moves through with a possible line of low-topped convection (with or without lightning). This line of convection could result in brief but strong wind gusts.

The third period for strong winds for ALL of us will likely be Tuesday afternoon BEHIND the cold front strong sustained west winds along with even stronger gusts (perhaps over 55 mph) are possible.

Also expect a big temperature swing from the upper 20s to low 30s early Monday morning, warming into the 50s and even low 60s by Tuesday morning! Then expect temperatures to crash and fall during Tuesday afternoon.