There's been some chatter about a weather system that could bring a chance for rain and snow toward the later part of the week. This system is still several days out, so there are a LOT of different scenarios that could play into our forecast. In short, a North and West track would keep things warmer here and leave us with mostly rain. A South and East track would place us on the cooler side and give us a higher potential for a wintry mix or snow.
One thing we can do to narrow the possibilities of this low pressure's track is look at ensemble models in addition to the typical deterministic EURO or GFS you may sometimes hear about. Ensembles compare many different solutions based on subtle changes in the math or physics equations going into the model data. Some of the more commonly accessible ensemble models show 20 different member solutions with these various subtle changes.
Below are the latest ensemble runs from the American model through the end of the week, courtesy of weather.cod.edu. You can see the wide range of possibilities when it comes to precipitation type Friday evening (top) and as a result, total snowfall through Saturday (bottom). Notice all of the solutions have the general track of the low pressure nearby, which means even small shifts in as little as 100 miles could flip our precipitation type from rain to snow or vice versa.
Until we get more consensus between these various ensemble members, any snowfall "forecast" you see will just be a shot in the dark. For now, I think the *best* chance for any accumulating snow is centered mainly Northwest of the Stateline region, but that is subject to change as we get closer to Thursday and get a better grasp of how this system will evolve. A general rule of thumb is not to trust any snow totals more than 2-3 days out from a system. Keep tuned to the forecast and we will be sure to bring you the latest!
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