A developing winter storm out of southwest today will bring heavy snows to the Plains tonight and eventually into the lower Lakes and Ohio Valley tommorow and early Wednesday. Currently looks like heaviest will miss Quads, Chicago and Detroit but these areas could get 3-6 inches while areas in N MO/S IA/C IL/IN/OH could get 6-12 inches with locally more. Latest 06z NAM has gone a tad north and wetter up the I-80 north corridor while it has shrunk heavy snow band in IN. Plenty of time still for adjustment(s). 50-60 mile north would put the big cities right back in the heaviest axis of snow!

06z NAM Snowfall:

I'm posting this for comparison purposes to see how this cold wave stacks up with past events. I'm pretty concerned the temperature problems that SEA has experienced in recent months might ruin this, but we shall see. Amazing to think we could have 2 weeks in the top 7 since 2010. I will post the year, dates that made up the 7 day "week", the daily high and low for those dates, and the average for the week.

1. 1989 - 1st - 7th (weekly avg. 22.4)

32-15

18-11

20-10

31-7

34-14

40-18

43-20

2. 1956 - 13th - 19th (weekly avg. 29.5)

39-28

40-24

24-13

25-13

33-25

41-28

45-35

3. 1950 - 1st - 7th (weekly avg. 29.7)

27-1

30-8

35-8

41-33

43-34

40-35

46-35

4. 1962 - 24th - Mar 2 (weekly avg. 30.6)

37-25

37-22

36-18

39-20

34-30

39-31

37-29

5. 1949 - 1st - 7th (weekly avg. 30.7)

37-23

33-25

35-27

33-24

35-21

37-31

38-31

6. 1985 - 1st - 7th (weekly avg. 32.2)

36-30

37-28

35-24

32-19

37-28

42-31

41-31

7. 2011 - 23rd - Mar 1 (weekly avg. 32.4)

37-27

35-24

31-20

34-19

42-33

40-34

44-34

With the coming possibly historic cold spell I thought it would be fun to take a look at how much snow cold waves in the first half of February typically produce. I only included significant events that produced at least several days of much below normal temperatures. The data is from Seattle except for 1884, 1887, and 1890. 1884 and 1887 were from Tacoma, and 1890 from Port Blakely (Bainbridge Island).

1884 - 9.0" (month later had a 24" snowstorm)

1887 - 13.5"

1890 - 14.5"

1893 - 30.5 (cold wave was a continuance of a cold snap that began in late Jan)

1899 - 6.1"

1900 - 0.6"

1910 - 4.0" (much more in outlying areas)

1916 - 35.4" (this really shouldn't be included due to being the end of a long event, but it's fun to look at)

1923 - 17.4"

1929 - 7.0" (continuation of cold weather that began in late Jan)

1933 - 1.0"

1936 - 5.8"

1939 - 0.4"

1948 - 2.2"

1949 - 13.1"

1956 - 6.4" (9.4" for the entire month)

1985 - 5.7" (much more in outlying areas)

1989 - 5.8"

1990 - 9.8"

A few interesting things to note...

1. None of the events had no snow

2. The last 4 events all had decent amounts of snow

3. 1994 and 1995 didn't make the grade for intensity and or duration of cold

4. 2006 and 2011 were too late in the month for this comparison