Day 1: A Snowy Beginning
Since 365 blogs are all the rage I thought I’d go ahead and try one. The catch? Instead of posting a photograph a day I’ll be posting a weather map a day and trying to give a quick overview of it. We’ll see how long this lasts…
Day 1 is a map generated by the National Operational Hydrologic Remote Sensing Center (part of the National Weather Service) of snow cover for the continental United States (known as the National Snow Analysis). As you can see a majority of the CONUS is covered with snow. In fact, checking this map on Christmas Day revealed that approximately 2/3rds of the CONUS had a White Christmas (defined to be 1″ of snow on the ground). Today’s map only differs slightly from the snow cover map on Christmas Day – mainly across northwest Texas (where melting has occurred) and across central Missouri eastward through southern Indiana (where recent snowfall has resulted in minor accumulations).
A major cold surge forecast to grip areas east of the Rocky Mountains next week. Couple this with several minor upper-level lows forecast to move through the eastern US, the snow area should expand southward next week.
(Click on the image to view it in its native resolution.)
About Patrick
Patrick Marsh is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Oklahoma's School of Meteorology. He earned a Bachelors of Science in Mathematics and Physics (cum laude) from the University of Arkansas in 2005 and a Masters of Science in Meteorology from the University of Oklahoma in 2007. In addition to working on his doctorate, Patrick serves as the National Severe Storms Laboratory Liaison to the Hazardous Weather Testbed where his research interests lie in working with operational forecasters, data mining, data visualization, and all things high-impact weather. For more about Patrick's work, check out his complete CV!
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