False Radar?

[eskysteve]

Hello John,
For about a 3 hour period this afternoon the radar indicated that it was snowing but there wasn't a flake to be seen. Is this a bad sign for the predicted snowfall? Now that it is snowing I noticed the radar had lots of holes in it heading North towards the Central UP and most of the precip was over Minnesota and Lower Michigan. Did something happen that was not predicted? Thanks in advance.

 

[bobt]

I'm guessing evaporation before it hits the ground, even happens in the summer with rain. John will give you the scientific reason.

 

[eskysteve]

I figured it was evaporation but in this case it was for a long period of time. I'm guessing that there was a dry pocket of air over central upper Michigan. We ended up with 3-4 inches only. You could see on the radar that the precip was disappearing as it moved North. I also noticed that the main precip was in Minnesota and lower Michigan. Quite a bit off of what the computer forecast models showed earlier in the day. I'm starting to think that we're cursed here in the central U.P.

 

[jd]

Sorry I missed this one somehow, but it was dry air near the surface that caused the snow to evaporate before reaching the ground and then a dry slot developed in the storm that ate into the snow that would have otherwise fallen in areas like the south central UP and north central WI.

-John