The Monster Mash!! Thundery cold rain & Hurricane force winds to massive blizzard conditions in the Mountains

Issued: October 13, 2020 @ 4:30 AM

Valid: October 13, 2020 @ 5 AM

Forecaster: James Follette

Gooooooood Tuesday morning British Columbians!! Hope you all had a great and happy Thanksgiving and it not to full for more turkey sandwiches ;)

We have a lot of weather to talk about today, we’ll start with our Severe Weather Alert!

We’ll go first to the radar, where we are tracking some heavy rain & thunderstorms over the Vancouver Island area.

We are tracking several thunderstorms and moderate to heavy rain to start the early Tuesday morning. A lot of the storms are heading to the North and North East towards Vancouver and Victoria. The rain will pick up through the day today and then begin to taper off by the evening hours with scattered showers still coming down.

As we zoom out of the ready for a closer look at rest of Vancouver areas, Lot’s of rain to our South and East, both of those directions is where our winds will be coming from and where the moisture will come from, So plan on a mostly all day washout.

Taking a look at the latest current Satellite Infrared Imagery with Front & MSLP progs programmed in,

We have a very large low-pressure system just off the coast near Haidi Gwaii that will track towards Port Hardy later today as the system strengthens even more, and as it does so it will increase the winds later this afternoon. Winds will become at it’s worst later this afternoon into tonight.

Meanwhile, elsewhere there is lots of nice weather as high pressure in the big boss!

With the Tops Super HD Satellite Imagery, you can picture out where the storm is, a huge wall of cold cloud tops, which means high cloud tops and the colder it is the more intense the system, and the colder it gets the more it intensifies. Currently, we have cloud tops as cold as near -60*C.

As well, the circulation of the low, and where the center is, with the swirl of clouds. You can get a better look however by looking at the Water Vapour Satellite Imagery. This tells us how much moisture is in the clouds. The darker the color, the higher the moisture, the good chance you will see some precipitation falling or even some very heavy moisture.

With systems like these, drier air wraps around the low to the South and East, and this is just like the other cases. Lot’s of moisture wraps around from the SE then a dry air on the back side. Where there is dry air, expect some breaks in the rain and clouds.

We have a warm front that will pass through first bringing us rain, and storms, then behind it we have a cold front, that will swing through later today and tonight to ramp up the winds. Then we’ll have a few good days as High pressure off in the open to our west will slide in here starting on Thursday.

We are tracking several thunderstorms from the south coming up towards Port Hardy. Here is one that is a strong slammer just on the Naniamo River.

Another Strong slammer from between Howell Island and Austin Island

Another strong slammer towards Brewster Lake and the Brewster Lake Recreation site.

And we have this Wild house shaker thunderstorm that is producing cloud to ground lightning, heavy rainfall, and strong winds with intense thunder and frequent lightning. could even see some small hail with these storms. This storm is over the Shushartie River.

Here is a look at our FutureCAST taking us out over next 18 hours, Rain already starting and moved into Vancouver Island, this will continue to spread further North inland, while Snow, Ice Pellets and Freezing rain will occur for a few hours over the higher terrain over Vancouver Island, and some heavy snowfall turning into a massive blizzard for the Mountainous Terrain. Many of the mountains will see as much as 2 to 3 feet of snow!!! meanwhile closer down to lower levels, up to a half foot can be expected in the very high terrain areas, and areas of lower terrain such as in Vancouver Island and along the coast near the water. only a few cm’s is expected.

Along with Rain, Snow, Mix, Ice & Thunderstorms are the very strong winds! Winds will gust as high as 115-125 km/h for some parts of the South coast later today and tonight while most other areas will still see damaging winds of near 100 km/h. and Inland areas will also see strong winds Gusting 40-80 km/h.

Widespread power outages are very likely today, tonight & tomorrow for much of the South coast, and lower Vancouver, meanwhile further Inland where Gusts of 80+ km/h Gusts are possible, potential outages there are also expected.

Thunderstorms expected over much of all of Vancouver areas and the entire South Coast.

Rain this morning, will be Moderate to even heavy at times. Lighter rainfall over Terrace to Kitimat.

Rain becomes more lighter, by Afternoon but the winds will pick up. meanwhile snow will continue to fall heavily over higher terrain and the mountains.

Similar conditions in the Evening hours. So how much rainfall can we expect by time it is all over?

Large area of 20-30 mm is expected, however there are local spots that will likely reach 40+ mm. areas South of Naniamo and around Hope and Penticton. Could see rainfall amounts of near 50 mm, and a bit more near Hope. For remainder of the province far inland, 5-10 mm for Prince George to Williams Lake and down to Kamloops, Vernon and Kelowna. Further South of those areas, only up to 20 mm is expected.

Here is the latest snow map, these DO INCLUDE amounts for High terrain and mountainous areas.

Huge swatch of 30-50cm with many areas in the mainland mountains getting close to or over 60 cm. Same with Hope, Penticton, Kelowna, Vernon & Salmon Arm high terrains, and the TransCanada highway over the mountains. Prince George to Quesnel, up to 20cm of snow is expected, near 12cm over terrain in Kamloops. Parts of Vancouver coast could see some 6-12cm of snow, before a change over to all rain.

Vancouver Island, up to 20cm over the high terrains and near 6cm in lower elevations before a changeover. a small dusting to 2cm for the South of Nanaimo.

Lastly, here is a look at the winds! very strong along the coast where it will gusts over 100 to even 110+ km/h. this also includes Kelowna to Penticton. further Inland, expect 80 to as high as 95 km/h Gusts and much of the province from Kamloops all the way north, expect Gusts to 60 km/h.

Another update later this afternoon!