Sleather

Oh man, I'm leaving for Bonita Springs on the 20th.... Looks like its going to be fairly cool... Might even be driving in the snow - depending on the model and dates.... Argh...

I'm always game for a nice storm. One of my earliest memories of a blizzard was in an Iowa farmhouse in the late '50's. March. Warm weather one day. Blinding blizzard that night. Warm next day.... Kerosene lanterns, cookstove, whole nine yards.... March is a fun month!

Probably be a while before my yard melts.. I've still got lots of 3 and 4' deep spots.

Izzy from LOT: 000 FXUS63 KLOT 011758 AFDLOT AREA FORECAST DISCUSSION NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE CHICAGO/ROMEOVILLE IL 1158 AM CST SAT MAR 1 2014 .DISCUSSION... 1158 AM CST DID A QUICK UPDATE TO THE GRIDS FOR THIS AFTERNOON TO MOVE UP THE TIMING OF THE ONSET OF THE SNOW THIS AFTERNOON ACROSS NORTHERN PORTIONS OF THE CWA. STILL LOOKS LIKE STRONG MID LEVEL FRONTOGENESIS WILL SUPPORT AN AREA OF FAIRLY IMPRESSIVE SNOWFALL ACROSS THE AREA LATE THIS AFTERNOON INTO TONIGHT...SPREADING GRADUALLY SOUTH ACROSS THE CWA. WILL LIKELY BE NUDGING STORM TOTAL SNOWFALL AMOUNTS DOWNWARD SOME...PROBABLY MORE INTO THE 3-5" RANGE ACROSS THE CWA...WITH MANY AREAS POSSIBLY WINDING UP ON THE LOWER END OF THAT RANGE. EVEN SO...A COUPLE/FEW HOURS OF STRONG ASCENT COUPLED WITH WEAKER STABILITY ALOFT COULD ALLOW FOR SOME BRIEFLY IMPRESSIVE SNOWFALL RATES. ALSO APPEARS AS THOUGH SNOWFALL WILL BE WRAPPING UP EARLIER THAN PREVIOUSLY THOUGHT...WITH THE MAJORITY DONE NORTH OF I-80 BY MIDNIGHT. IZZI &&

Seems a bit conservative to me. The Romeoville AFD was just talking about 6":

Back on 2/6, GFS showed these two systems coming through Chicago area. Surprised at the "accuracy" of GFS that far in advance. Had them as snow as I recall.

Isn't very impressive anywhere but it's a good sign that it is snowing earlier than thought. Maybe the totals will get boosted by some minor amount 1/2-1"

A few lonely flakes falling here this morning in Plainfield, IL.

Yeah, I've been noticing just after Valentines and then again around the 20th.... But, the temps will be starting to warm up by late Feb (maybe!)

I was looking at the plumes. Most the families support the 2-3" for Joliet area. But, the Advanced Research WRF mean for accum snow is showing 5". I'll still guess ~3" or so.

Plumes are on the rise for Chicago area this weekend. Most families are down around 3" but Advanced WRF is up around 5-6". Kinda surprised.

We got around 4.5" in Plainfield, IL. That was pretty much as predicted via SREF. Some model groups were a little higher/lower. SREF either doesn't know about lake effect or handles it very poorly. Plainfield is too far out to get hit with lake effect much. 2hr drive to work this morning (13miles). Nobody wants to lay salt down anymore so a minor snow really snarls things up. Hope I55 is cleaned up by this afternoon.

Should start picking up intensity again pretty soon. But, pretty wimpy stuff. Might have to use the broom in the morning instead of a shovel or snowblower. Might just drain the gas out of the snowblower and get it ready to put away for the year.

Better warm up in later March! I'm sitting on Bonita Springs Beach then...

You know, on wunderground, the GFS shows lots of activity around the 18th-19th.... for the Great Lakes area. Long, long time from now though.

The plumes for Joliet are similar. But, the plume means are being pulled upwards due to NAM values. If you exclude NAM's then the mean QPF falls down to around .3 - which will still translate to 4-5" accumulation. I really need to understand how SREF calculates SR values. It would be nice if they showed the SR values they were using.

I have a real hard time buying into the SREF plume calculations. For Joliet it has 6" accum snow and .8 precip. The SR calculations must be really messed up...

The SREF Plume means for JOT have been declining for the last few runs. For Joliet the mean accumulation is now down to 5.5" from a high of 8". The QPF is about the same so that implies the ratios are getting worse.... Maybe a result of the projections shifting northward