The winter storm proved to be not too bad

Well, the snowfall accumulation for this winter storm wasn't quite as bad as expected. The image below is a picture I took on my way home from school around 10:00am this morning. Here we can see stratus clouds, I believe they are altostratus clouds. The reason I think they are altostratus is because they are they are covering the entire sky, and contain continuous snow at this time. Icky, icky, icky!

This is an image I took around 5:00pm. By this time most of the snowfall has stopped. Overall, a total accumulation of 5.3" was recorded at 3:00pm in Eau Claire. For scale, we can see that my hose, that never got put away for the winter, is almost 3/4 of the way covered in snow accumulation.

Current weather conditions include a temperature of 26.2F, but it feels like 20.3F. Relative humidity is at 94%, with a dew point of 24.6F. Barometric reading is at 30.13 in Hg and rising rapidly. Winds are coming from the north at 7 mph.

This surface map, that I obtained around 5:30, shows wind direction coming from the north around 7mph. The winter storm warning was in effect until 6:oo pm. However, winds coming from the north no longer have moisture feeding into them, therefore there is no more moisture coming into condense and turn into precipitation. 



 

We can conclude from both the wind direction and barometric pressure that conditions will clear up very soon. As I stated above, winds coming from the north no longer have moisture feeding into them. Also, the rapidly rising barometric pressure indicates high atmospheric pressure. This means the low pressures are moving out, which indicate precipiation; and high pressures moving in, which indicate clear skies, because of a lack of moisture.

Here is an illustration of wind patterns at this time as well. Here we can confirm winds are coming from the north. Like I stated above, these winds coming from the north no longer are being fed with moisture. These winds are coming from the polar region which contain cold, dry air that will lead to weather conditions void of precipitation.

This surface data map shows that the low pressure cell has moved to the southeast, and there is precipitation in the form of rainfall in the eastern part of the cell. As we can see this from this surface map, knowing that high pressure move into low pressure in a counterclockwise motion, precipitation is being fed into the this system from the Atlantic. We can see a warm front moving in that will continue to produce precipitation.



This surface map below depicts a close up of Winter Storm Saturn on the East Coast.