Ongoing analysis Material from: Linus, Peter Bechtold
Discussed in the following Daily reports: -
1. Impact
In the second week of December, Israel experienced exceptional precipitation amounts in the southern Israel coast and the exceptional snow accumulation in the Judea and Samaria hills.
The most important event was the intense snow accumulation in Judea and Samaria during the night between Thursday December 12th and Friday December 13th.
In about 12h or less they got about 50cm of snow in Jerusalem. In the Samaria hills the intense snow accumulation lasted throughout Friday, reaching about 1 meter of snow towards evening.
The entire region was blocked, trees & power lines collapsed because of the snow load and about 60,000 people where in blackout, with the roads blocked all around them for a couple of days. (e-mail from the Met Service)
A report about the event from the Met Service can be found here.
More about the impact can be found on http://www.timesofisrael.com/jerusalem-braces-for-storm-three-times-worse-than-what-has-been-seen-so-far/ .
2. Description of the event
The figure above shows the z500 and t850 (upper row) and MSLP and precipitation (lower row) for the forecast from 11 December 00UTC for +12h (right) and +36h) right. I cut-off low was situation over the very eastern part of the Mediterranean, bringing cold air from the north over the sea. The showers was advected onto the Israeli coast.
3. Predictability
3.1 Data assimilation
3.2 HRES
3.3 ENS
3.4 Monthly forecasts
3.5 Comparison with other centres
4. Experience from general performance/other cases