Snow before Thanksgiving?

Possible Snow for Richmond Nov 26th

This week is shaping up to be an interesting one for Richmond, VA! First, temperatures will keep climbing from a low of about 35-36 tonight all the way up to the mid 70s on Monday!!

This is in response to a potent 500mb shortwave that is abnormally far south. At least I can't ever remember a time when a shortwave in the Southern stream had so much energy and intensify like this one will. Here is the 11/22 NAM 12z initialization.




At the surface, a low pressure center is forecast to form in the lee of the Rockies. Another low that has already formed in Alberta will move down into the upper plains and combine with the Rockie low. It looks like this low will rapidly intensify by the time it moves over the Great Lakes by forecast hour 48 (12Z 11-24). The GFS has the low below 972mb! This will provide plenty of warm air advection for us in the warm sector, giving us the near 75 degree highs on Monday. As the warm front moves through on Monday, the NAM has Richmond getting over an inch of rain, but the GFS is only showing ~1/4 of an inch.

Snow!!!

The big excitement for me is the possible snow on Wednesday.

After that shortwave moves through, the GFS is showing a second shortwave moving throught the bottom of the main trough. A low pressure is forecast to form off the Carolina coast and moving quickly up the Eastern shore. This low may also bomb out off the coast of Newfoundland. As it bushes past Virginia, wrap around moisture, and a column that looks like it can support freezing precip, and a surface right 34-35 could be our first snowstorm and our first big snowstorm.

If it verifies, I just hope it doesn't cause any trouble for my Dad who is coming to visit us for Thanskgiving. He gets here Thurday morning!