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There will be snow. Lots of snow.

January 16, 2022 @ 22:07 By: gordon Category: Weather

It’s been a while since I blogged about anything of significance. The weather in Ottawa is going to be rather exciting over the next day or two.

TAF CYOW 170240Z 1703/1724 07010KT P6SM BKN140
FM170600 07012KT 1 1/2SM -SN OVC025
FM170800 06015KT 3/4SM -SN VV007
FM171300 06015G25KT 1/4SM +SN VV005 PROB40 1713/1716 1/8SM +SN
BLSN
FM171600 01012KT 1SM -SN OVC008
FM172100 32012KT 2SM -SN OVC010
RMK NXT FCST BY 170600Z

In simple terms, this TAF basically says that Ottawa is going to get snow. A lot of snow. Starting at about 01:00, or in about three hours’ time from now.

Looking at the various models, it looks like the peak is going to be between about 08:30 and 11:00, which is consistent with the bolded line above, which says that from 1300Z (08:00 Eastern) the wind will be 15 knots gusting to 25 knots from the east-northeast. The visibility is forecast to be about a quarter of a mile with a vertical viability of 500′ and heavy snow. And there’s a 40% probability between 1300Z and 1600Z (11:00 Eastern) that the visibility will drop to an eighth of a mile with heavy snow and blowing snow.

This model is predicting a 1-hour accumulation of 64.6 mm, or 6.5 cm, of snow at 9am Eastern.
This model measures precipitation in terms of rain, while snow is approximately 10 times as much. At 10am Eastern, it is predicting a 3-hour accumulation of 14.7 mm of rain, which is roughly 147 mm of snow or 14.7 cm of snow.

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