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Sunday: "Some Ice", or "Ice Storm?"

I've been watching this ice signal since last week. Now it's time to decide how big a deal it'll be.

Hate it or love it: I like taking shots at long range forecasts. 

More often than not, if there's a big signature lurking in the long range (even 10 days out); it's onto something. Big heat, big snow, big cold, big ice. 

There will be times it doesn't work out or doesn't live up to it's potential (like me), but if you stick to the strong  signals...it's safe money.

Which leads me to this ice event for Sunday. I started tweeted about it Monday, but I was texting friends and fellow weenies about it as early as last Saturday. 

So here we are on Wednesday afternoon (night? It gets dark at 2:15 PM so I dunno) and it's becoming more and more clear that ice will impact a good part of the state on Sunday. The question is: How much? The difference between 1/4" and say 3/4" of ice is HUGE.

We start off with a warm front and a torch.

Saturday the front will be up in Canada and warm air will be surging in statewide. 

Credit: ncm

Yes, those are some upper 50s. I'd venture to say it could even hit 60 F if there's any sun (which there might be over southern coastal Maine). The rest of the state will be more like 50 F with clouds and some showers. All rain though, not even close. But there are no travel problems or otherwise on Saturday.

It's late Saturday night into Sunday that things start to fall apart. A ridge of high pressure in Canada will build in from the west and essentially push the warm front back to the south.

Credit: ncm

So now we will have cold air at the surface coming in but it will remain warm aloft. That's the signature for freezing rain. Now the key is HOW cold will it be at the surface. Even though you can technically get freezing rain at 32 F, the best freezing rain events occur when the surface is well below that....20s at least or even teens.

Credit: ncm

You can see that we've got that kind of cold air, mainly away from the coastline.

The peak of the freezing rain and sleet will likely be in the middle of the day on Sunday, that's when things will be nasty. It will continue into Sunday early evening before moving out. 

So here's what I'm thinking-

Credit: ncm

This would put the storm in the "impactful" but not disastrous range, BUT it's only Wednesday so there's still time for adjustment. 

We do have several things working in our favor to avoid a '98 style storm:

1) It's a quick mover relatively speaking. The Ice Storm of '98 played out over 3-4 days (5-6 in upstate New York) and most good freezing rain events do the same. Because of the nature of freezing rain accretion it's difficult to do a lot of it fast. So slow, steady and painful is how the biggest storms work out. 

2) It's gonna be really mild ahead of the ice. Now this isn't a hard/fast rule (I once did a live shot from Raleigh, NC in short sleeves the day before a major ice storm), but it usually reduces ice accretion a bit to have it mild ahead of time. This has largely to do with specific heat and how long it takes surfaces to warm/cool.

3) Model freezing rain outputs are terrible. They always overestimate ice accretion because they don't take into account the air mass before, the wind (wind helps ice things up faster. Interesting right?) and the exact surface temperature. 

They basically say "It's above 32 F aloft, it's below 32 F on the ground. All of this will be ice." 

Ok well that's all I got for now. Check in with us tomorrow because this is a very early map and I'm the only one dumb enough to do it.

Carson out

I do it for the gram:
https://www.instagram.com/keithcarsonweather/ 




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