Wednesday, December 4, 2024

Day 3 of Erie, PA (KERI)

It dropped to 26F last night with offshore wind and mostly cloudy skies before warming up to F so far now, though the high will likely occur later this evening. Behind a cold front/low-level convergence zone that will likely arrive just before 06z tonight, winds will become quite strong at least briefly and shift to west-northwesterly later tonight with cold advection aloft, leading to instability. The instability will also help mix down the stronger winds from aloft (>50 kt at 850 hPa) but USL's 41 kt seems a bit high. The wind will not be quite right for the fetch over the long axis of Lake Erie for an intense band, with lake-effect snow instead spreading out into cells or a few less intense bands. Also, the strong winds mean that a lot of the lake-effect snow will actually be dumped farther inland than Lake Erie, especially later Thursday when winds turn more to the northwest, perpendicular to the shoreline. It will also turn colder behind the cold front tonight but with temperatures greatly moderated by the flow directly off Lake Erie. The low will likely occur tonight with more west to west-southwesterly winds with less moderation from Lake Erie before winds turn to straight off Lake Erie from the northwest on Thursday. But it could also occur with any heavier snow bands pulling cold air aloft down to the surface. USL looks pretty good as usual except probably overly high on wind and precip.
 
Source: PivotalWeather
 
 
Source: PivotalWeather
 
 

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