Weather
Craig Koplien: Weather or NotSo That's What "Snow Showers" AreBy Craig Koplien
email: ckoplien@todaystmj4.com
When I give you the forecast, sometimes I say that we are expecting snow. Other times I say we are expecting snow showers. What's the difference? Yesterday was a classic example of snow showers. These are scattered, small areas of snow. In some cases, no more than one or two square miles in size. They can be light or heavy. Since they are so small in the area they affect, they usually come and go quite quickly. It's typical that if conditions exist for one snow shower to develop, there will be many. That's why in these situations you usually see it start and stop snowing many times. When my forecast calls for "snow" without the word "showers" following it, it means I am expecting a large area of snow to move in. This means that all of Wisconsin might be covered with the area of snow. Or, more likely, the southern half of the state, or even just the southeast quarter. In any case, this would be a much more widespread and uniform covering of snow than in a "snow showers" situation. Our local National Weather Service office put together a very nice web page with details about yesterday's snow showers. There are a few images of their radar...along with a time-lapse radar display. Note that there are many small, distinct "blobs" of blue and green on the radar. These are the snow showers. (Blue is light snow, green is moderate). If this had been a "snow" (without the "showers") situation...you would see a solid area of blue/green covering a much wider area on the radar. Here's a link to that site... http://www.crh.noaa.gov/news/display_cmsstory.php?wfo=mkx&storyid=19388&source=0 |
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