Ontario Winter Storm: March 01-02, 2016

Another storm is already on the doorsteps of S. Ontario and will arrive in E. Ontario later tonight. Much of Southern and Eastern ON will see snow with this system, except for a few spots near Lake Ontario and Lake Erie which will see snow change over to ice pellets and even freezing rain . This line will stretch from Windsor to Hamilton and up towards the Kingston area. This will reduce the limit for the amount of snowfall these areas will see.

The areas north of Toronto towards the Ottawa Valley, could see a swath of 15-25 cm of snow by Wednesday afternoon. Local amounts of 30 cm are possible northeast of the Ottawa Valley towards Quebec City. Heaviest snowfall rates of between 2-4 cm/hr will be possible later tonight north of Toronto towards Barrie. In E. Ontario the heaviest snowfall will occur very early Wednesday morning and into the morning commute, as the deformation zone shifts Northeast.

There is still some uncertainty with the storm track at time. Another factor with this storm is its track speed (refer to the 700 mb image). This is a steady and quick tracking storm, so the duration of the heaviest snowfall will be limited as well. This will also mean driving conditions tonight and into Wednesday will deteriorate quickly in combination with strong bursts of snow and strong winds creating near zero visibility.

To end this on an interesting note, while looking at the model soundings, I noticed descent lapse rate values between 3-6 km over S. Ontario. This along with the presence of strong forcing could lead to some thundersnow. The first NAM sounding represents a location just north of Toronto at 10 pm tonight and the second is near Ottawa at 1 am Wednesday.

So don't complain about the snow, enjoy it...