Glimmer of snowpack hope? But return to cool mornings/warm afternoons

The good news is the rain yesterday fell as snow up in the mountains.  Even though it hasn’t shown up on the graph just yet, just maybe, this is a start on a bit of a snowpack.

From the River Forecast Centre.  Data is a little noisy to start... third and second to last values are the important Snow Water Equivalent  and Snow Depth measurements.  Times are in UTC.
From the River Forecast Centre. Data is a little noisy to start… third and second to last values are the important Snow Water Equivalent and Snow Depth measurements. Times are in UTC.

The hourly data shows the 28cm of snow fell on Jump Creek over the evening and last night. (near Nanaimo Lakes)

The value they track is Snow Water Equivalent rather than snow depth.  So the graph below should update later today to show just the tiniest lift in the dark blue line as the hourly data is reporting 20mm of snow water, but it hasn’t updated yet.spd3b23p-3

 

Don’t get too excited though.  Average snow water equipvalent for this time of year is closer to 1000mm.  So Thursday’s small system delivered only 2% of that average. But lets hope it is the start of a trend.

Breezy today – Pattern of foggy/cool mornings warm/sunny afternoons returning?

There is some breeziness happening right now on the East and West Coasts of the Island as the last remnants of the front pass through but this should end fairly soon.

The models are a little uncertain, but the general consensus seems to be that we will be back to a pattern of foggy and cold mornings, possibly going below zero, with the fog breaking by noon and sunny and warm afternoons getting into the 10ºC-15ºC range.

Here is Friday and Saturday from the Canadian high resolution short term model.  We might dip below freezing tonight as the clouds clear but it should be warm again tomorrow and it doesn’t actually predict any fog.  We’ll see.Screen Shot 2015-02-27 at 9.15.45 AM

 

 

This agrees well with the temperature forecast from the UWash model for Saturday afternoon which has us up to 15ºC.

 

 

wa_tsfc.12.0000

 

It also agrees with the multi-model analysis showing mild temperatures through the weekend though the lows start to drop below freezing by Monday or Tuesday.Screen Shot 2015-02-27 at 9.16.08 AM

 

 

Light showers on Sunday evening.

There is a risk of some light showers on Sunday evening.  Perhaps a little more snow for the snowpack station.  Don’t expect any of it to fall as snow anywhere other than the Mountain ranges.  But again, it won’t be very much.

wa_pcp3.63.0000Looking long range into March, the brief cold spell gives way to very mild temperatures even though the outliers do have some colder temperatures.

Screen Shot 2015-02-27 at 9.22.27 AM

Have a great weekend everyone!

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