Winter Arrives Without a Bang

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Winter Arrives Without a Bang
8AM EST, December 1, 2003


For meteorologists, seasons are separated by the calendar and not the
position of the sun. Since winter is well underway across most of the U.S., and for the consistency of keeping weather and climate records, meteorologists set the beginning of winter every year on December 1.
Winter is considered the full months of December, January and February. And since this year February will have 29 days, the winter season will be one day longer than the previous 3 years.

As winter rolled in at midnight last night, the only real evidence of the season was around the northern Plains and Great Lakes. The coldest temperature reading was at Wolf Point in northeast Montana, where the mercury dropped to one degree. A very cold air mass was beginning to
flow in from Canada and this has caused the lake effect snow to begin to
fly in northern Michigan. Winds gusted to 58 mph in Holland, Michigan and near 50 mph all along the western Michigan lake shore. A WeatherBug live sensor measured a peak gust of 42 mph in Detroit.

Heavy lake effect snow bands were dumping a thick coating of the white
stuff on the Upper Peninsula. Two to six inches was common with another 2-5 inches possible. With high winds and temperatures in the 20s and 30s, wind chill readings in the single digits are expected. The heart of the cold air will slide in over the Great Lakes and flow into New England during the day today and overnight tonight.

Lake effect snow advisories and warnings have been issued for a large part of western and southwestern New York and also northeast Ohio and northwest Pennsylvania. Precipitation is just beginning downwind from the Great Lakes in New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania and it will quickly change to a heavy wet snow. Snow could fall at the rate of up to 1-2 inches per hour in some of the higher elevations east of Lake Ontario and in
the Finger Lakes region east of Lake Erie.

Amounts will range from 2-10 inches by later Tuesday morning, depending on where the heaviest bands persist. The cold air will push temperatures to some of the coldest readings of the season in New England and the Mid-Atlantic on Tuesday. Outside of the lake
effect snows and cloud cover, clear skies will dominated the East and allow
the sunshine to split through the cold air.

In the West, mild pacific air masses have put the thought of winter on the
back burner. A mild storm will push into the western U.S. and allow for snow in only the highest elevations of the Cascades and Sierra Mountains. A winter weather advisory has been issued for eastern Washington for the
possibility of some light snow or freezing rain.