Rain appears to be in our forecast for Thursday as a strong upper level low swings through our area. It looks like the bulk of the rain will occur during the evening hours and we might see as much as 0.75" of rain by the time it ends. There could be some rumbles of thunder but I don't expect any severe weather with this system.
There are some very interesting things going on in the atmosphere as we begin the slow downhill trek toward winter. My meteorologist buddy was commenting about the large number of closed low pressure systems in the northern hemisphere. First, a definition of what a closed low pressure system is:
"A low pressure area with a distinct center of cyclonic circulation which can be completely encircled by one or more isobars or height contour lines. The term usually is used to distinguish a low pressure area aloft from a low-pressure trough. Closed lows aloft typically are partially or completely detached from the main westerly current, and thus move relatively slowly."
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In most situations, low pressure areas are associated with fronts, cold fronts and warm fronts. They are pulled along by the movement of the fronts and the air behind them. A closed low is cutoff from that movement, and can get trapped within a certain pattern. It would normally indicate an area of rain, sometimes for days or longer, and in the case of tropical closed lows (all hurricanes and tropical storms), copious amounts of rain. But in the winter... yes, you guessed it, snow becomes the primary precipitation for most areas.
His comment: "I don't ever recall it (ECMWF) showing this many, I counted about 9 very strong closed lows, not including the deep troughs. Not sure what this means, other than we're in an extremely amplified flow pattern and if it continues through November, we'll have more blockbuster snowstorms somewhere concentrated in areas that get on the proper side of these strong bundles of energy. The models have it getting much colder beyond 7 days. Pretty amazing how many strong closed lows have already happened in the last month, and what's being shown to come." Robert Gamble
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I've included a map showing what Robert is looking at as well as a map showing our forecast precipitation estimates for Thursday/Thursday night. You can also see the HPC's Quantitative Precipitation forecast loop here.
So things are starting to look very interesting for November with what I think might include a surprise or two for us, stay tuned!
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