2/20/19 Snow Forecast

By Jack Martin on Feb 20, 2019 at 06:56 PM

Good Wednesday morning, 

Before starting my report for today, I wanted to share a quick story.

Last night I meet with an old friend, from back in the day when I was a weather spotter.

Mike is a lead forecaster at the national weather service in Oxnard.

We go back to around 1990 when we were both quite young.

It was great talking about the good old days, when him and Gary taught me about weather.

Mike recently moved to SB. He also has started a weather website for our area.

He takes the facts from the national weather service and makes it easy to navigate through it.

For those who want more than my translation, check it out.

http://www.805weather.com/  

Now the weather.....

Here comes the next very cold system. The feature of this low pressure system is not the wind or rain, but the cold air it brings with it.

This system is diving south out of Canada right now. North to south flow over land is going to be moisture starved. 

https://www.ssd.noaa.gov/goes/west/nepac/h5-loop-wv.html

This will make for unstable air, but very limited rain and snow.

For areas like Santa Barbara, the south facing mountains are going to block the rain showers.

The best we can hope for is some white on the hillside of San Marcus Pass.

The moisture that does fall with this, is more likely in Santa Ynez and Lompoc. 

Rain chance start up in the central coast later this morning, then move south this afternoon.

I do not expect more then some sprinkles today or tonight for SB.

Over night into Thursday, the colder air arrives.

This will make the atmospheric unstable, so showers can pop up anywhere through Thursday.

Snow levels will drop to 2500 feet over night Wednesday and down to 1500 feet on Thursday.

This will be the coldest system to date this season.

Personally I would love to see snow on mountains and if we get to 1500 feet Santa Ynez could see some at lower elevations.

I only remember one time this happened in 1999. I had 3 inches of snow at my house in the valley.

Regarding rain or snow. Lower elevations could see 1 to 3 inches. Rain will be a trace to 1/4 of a inch.

Higher totals are likely in thunderstorm locations, which are possible ..

All in all this event is more about the cold than anything.

Friday we clear out for the next 5 days. Warming some each day, but still unseasonable cold.

There is some chatter about something mid week, but that’s way too far out to even start a discussion.

In the mean time, let’s hope for some snow. Best chances for this is overnight Wednesday and Thursday.

Have a great Day …

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