Jack_GradStudent

Dynamically, this absolutely looks like a severe outbreak producer.. but that morning moisture shown in the gfs over northenr ar/southern mo worries me a bit. Euro deterministic would actually lead to better potential for a tornado outbreak due to it not becoming a cut off low and the surface low not occluding. Places better orthogonal deep layer shear over the area too.

I actually started to notice a trend in the GEFS and Euro mean. HRRR is higher res so it can resolve it better.

I'm even hesitant to call it storm snowfall totals wise. The winds and temps are making it one, though, for sure.

This storm is like predicting the exact locations of spotty showers-- the global models don't have the resolution to resolve what this event will really end up looking like-- some with a dusting, some with 5 inches!

https://whatgoesonoutside.com/a-white-christmas-for-most-and-dangerous-cold/ Hard to believe it, but areas between KC, Topeka, and St, Joe may see no snow at all. Here are my latest thoughts for the KC area!

This is from a research article of a climatology of snow to liquid ratios for the entire conus between 1971-2000. Obviously, with these cold temperatures, snow to liquid ratios will be higher, but I post this to warn against just going with the Kuchera snow maps. This is a map of not the mean ratios, but the 75th percentile meaning what would likely be the higher end of ratios for a snow event. Much of Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, and Illinois is in the 14-15:1 range. Climatology suggests that even in the more extreme events like this one, you can't necessarily bank on 20:1 + snow to liquid ratios. Another aspect to think about is how strong the winds will be which will likely breakdown the dendrites as they fall through the atmosphere. Just some thoughts...

Areas to the north and east have a much better chance... even if the storm gets its act together a bit quicker, it would first benefit those areas before the KC area. We would have to see a fairly large trend for snow totals to go up.

Any one deterministic model run that shows higher totals needs to be suspect at this point.. there's no point in paying any attention to the canadian that spits out 3 inches more than what the rest of the guidance is saying.. QPF across a wide range has been going down the past 48 hours. Now if ensemble probabilities start to lurch upward, that would be one thing, but 25th-75th percentiles have been going down consistently... to me it's looking like most places outside of the great lakes regions may be under warning criteria snow totals wise.

Never heard of the super ensemble.

After several model runs, my prediction of 2-5 inches for the KC metro hasn't budged one bit. The only way KC--Columbia--STL area can see more than that is if the upper level system can start maturing and begin to take that negative tilt much further west.. I definitely don't see that happening though. We won't really see a classic "comma head" or deformation band; it's really just going to be broad area of lift generated by the cold front at the surface and some strong mid-level dynamics and vorticity advection. QPF has been honing on the 0.15-0.35 range.. which is why I'm going with 2-5 inches..NBM also reflects this range with its 25th-75th percentile outputs. Yes I know the rain-snow ratios are going to be quite high, but not necessarily for entire period that it's snowing because the temps will be crashing as it begins.Was reading this from EAX tonight.. I am not sure what data is showing evidence of a half an inch of QPF.. thats a 90th percentile solution. I really think this 4-6 inches forecast is too high for Pleasant Hill CWA. Tuesday/Wednesday will be full of looking for little wiggles and twists this storm may have.

Did anyone else get a bit frustrated reading the AFD from Pleasant Hill? During a week where at least some accumulating snow is possible, you'd think there would be more mention of it. Sure, the cold needs to be highlighted but I would have liked to see a bit more analysis regarding the precipitation possible from this system.

That Christmas was awesome.. that was the best Christmas present my 10 year old self could ask for. I remember there being close to foot where I live in Johnson County. That storm had it all in terms of precip type and think it was the first time I had every experienced a blizzard warning.

Definitely do not like this trend I'm seeing in the GEFS for the Kansas/Missouri area.. Last night I said I wish I was seeing these kind of runs on Wednesday rather than Sunday.. also mentioned that GFS run had to be considered an anamoly and this kind of trend is exactly why. GEFS shows a system that isn't diving nearly southwest as we want it at least in the central part of the U.S. I highlighted the vorticity maximums in the latest GEFS run and last nights 0z run.. drastic differences. I think anything above 2 inches in is KC suspect. Hoping to see a trend back further SW soon.

Can only pray for a track like this.. wishing this was Wednesday night rather than Sunday night. GEFS also has continued to show this trough getting its act together much quicker and taking that negative tilt as it translates over Kansas and Missouri. Deterministic GFS spews out over an inch of liquid which is just not supported by any of the other data at this point whatsoever. An inch of qpf has got to be still considered a 95th percentile type of solution at this point. Storms like this that bring in tons of cold air in my experience often rack up snow totals not due to lots of qpf but higher ratios.. at best I see ~0.75 qpf from this storm but one that the ratios could kick snow totals up to a foot of snow or so.

https://whatgoesonoutside.com/a-wild-winter-weather-christmas-week/ My take on the potential impacts from this week's weather pattern... love sharing my thoughts on any hazardous weather via my blog and welcome any new followers! Join me on What Goes on Outside! Jack

I am not a forecaster.. work in research and development.. I initially wanted to go straight to NWS office asa forecaster, but this position appeared, and I don't have to work shift work, weekends, or holidays so that sounded quite nice.

They are spot on in mentioning the trough's tilt and dig. ging a bit further west.

NWS... work for the Aviation Weather Center.

Glad to be back on. It's been too long. Love to come on here during winter time. Really fun to track these things. Finally got MS in meteorology and I'm working in KC now!

Think we (in KC) could benefit from a slightly further north track... I think we will need a solid balance of how far this storm digs south and how organzied/strong it can be as it passes.. the more it digs, the more it will likely be stronger. The more it stays north, the more it will likely be weaker.

Especially 48 h+ away from the storm, gotta be very careful with qpf/snowfall outputs from the deterministic gfs.. it loved to spew out moisture and is often way too much. Definitely a trend to take note, though, especially because it's also evident in the ensemble mean.

I feel your pain. You can't consider it a bust when only one or a few models show a lot more than what fell--- the on air mets were also saying 2-6 ish. That one model you showed is the Canadian deterministic model, a model not known to be very accurate. You've gotta think about the vast number of models we have access to-- not just deterministic models, but their ensembles too. Euro has 60 members or something like that... gfs as 30 members.. and those ensembles weren't showing these 15 inch totals as north of as Atchison. By Sunday and Monday, if I saw more than 6 inches north of I-70, I know it was wrong because there was a considerable trend south all day Monday by many of the models. Again, I feel your pain.. I'm in STL now, so I'm shocked I may see close to 10 inches. I can barely believe it. Hang in there!

I'm in school for my master's in meteorology... probably learned that maybe last year lmao. This place is for sharing the weather and helping each other out; keep posting!

I grew up in Kansas City all of my life... I have seen more than 10 inches maybe two times since 2010.. it is so difficult to get that much snow. A lot of the forecasts started to go down in terms of totals last night... nothing much more than 5 or 6 inches especially on the southeast side was really expected.

It wasn't a "dry slot". The dry slot is usually a stream of dry air that cut off mid level systems will wrap in from the southwest... this system is not like that. There were lots of gaps in the radar echos because what's producing the lift isn't a classic storm, it's more of a stream of little disturbances combined with baroclinic zones in the the low levels of the atmosphere.