Pure Energy
I took a few minutes to loop together the last six depictions of the GFS computer model, starting on Wednesday night and running through the early Friday AM runs to illustrate a couple of big points regarding this weekend's "possibility." In the first loop below you can see the six GFS maps, all showing what the GFS is forecasting for Monday at 1 AM. Feel free to click on the maps in this thread as they should launch a loop showing you what the GFS is thinking for this storm. If you watch the news, you are likely seeing significant variability in forecasts for Sunday night and Monday because there is significant variability in computer guidance...and it's not just in the GFS guidance.
The big point I want to stress goes back to a post I made on Tuesday night, talking about how the computer guidance was having difficulty then in dealing with two distinct streams of energy. In the setup for Sunday night/Monday, stream one is from Canada and is driving southeast through the Plains and into the Ohio Valley. The other stream of energy is of Pacific origin and dives through the Rocky Mountains into Texas. Out of the last six GFS runs, there have been three storms and three no-storms. What's the deal with the GFS madness?
Look at the differences between the GFS loop above and the GFS loop below it comes down to how these two pieces of energy come together or not. If the two pieces can 'phase' together in the manner that the GFS runs above depict, the stronger storm forms as there is more energy working together to create the storm. I won't get into precipitation type issues and whether it will rain or snow, but the point is the storm is there.
When these two pieces of energy do not comes together, the storm really never gets its act together and instead we get a sheared and suppressed system as the Canadian energy hangs back. The Canadian energy is the key in getting the stronger storm solution. If we don't see that energy phase in with the southern system you get a weaker storm. We should see the computer guidance solidify over the next 24 hours around a solution, whether it's sheared or stronger, as both streams of energy begin to stream in through the United States and Canada, where upper air data is taken more frequently.
The big point I want to stress goes back to a post I made on Tuesday night, talking about how the computer guidance was having difficulty then in dealing with two distinct streams of energy. In the setup for Sunday night/Monday, stream one is from Canada and is driving southeast through the Plains and into the Ohio Valley. The other stream of energy is of Pacific origin and dives through the Rocky Mountains into Texas. Out of the last six GFS runs, there have been three storms and three no-storms. What's the deal with the GFS madness?
Look at the differences between the GFS loop above and the GFS loop below it comes down to how these two pieces of energy come together or not. If the two pieces can 'phase' together in the manner that the GFS runs above depict, the stronger storm forms as there is more energy working together to create the storm. I won't get into precipitation type issues and whether it will rain or snow, but the point is the storm is there.
When these two pieces of energy do not comes together, the storm really never gets its act together and instead we get a sheared and suppressed system as the Canadian energy hangs back. The Canadian energy is the key in getting the stronger storm solution. If we don't see that energy phase in with the southern system you get a weaker storm. We should see the computer guidance solidify over the next 24 hours around a solution, whether it's sheared or stronger, as both streams of energy begin to stream in through the United States and Canada, where upper air data is taken more frequently.Tags:
