Brighter days

It's getting brighter at the weather lab for my early broadcast. It's good to see some light in the sky at 6:57am when I hit the air. The sun rises at 7:17am tomorrow, and we're gaining about 3 minutes of daylight a day, or 21 minutes in the next week. Since the dark days of December, we've gained over an hour and a half of daylight.

Sunrise and sunset calendar

I'm casting a wary eye toward the "next" snow system headed this way. The forecast models are painting a swath of snow across southern Minnesota into Wisconsin again for Wednesday night into Thursday. So far this winter, most of the snow has stayed south of the metro. Madison, Wisconsin has had 75.5" of snow this season, and is likely to break the all time single season snow record today or tomorrow of 76.1" set back in 1978-79.

Madison snowfall

I have a theory as to why most of the snow is staying south. La Nina has pushed the jet stream a bit to the south this year. As we have been deeper into the cold air, the storms have been tracking through the Mid-Mississippi Valley instead of closer to home. Many of them have had a "positive tilt" meaning they lean forward of a weather map instead of backwards, where they have a chance to throw moisture further north. I can't prove it, it's just a theory, but it's as good as any I've seen so far.

We'll see if the computer models move the next system further south over the next 24 hours.

PH