Hawkeye

Hopefully, we can all enjoy a nice period of mild weather before the cold returns.

Tonight's 00z GFS has a cutoff upper low over the lakes next weekend.  The Euro has no low at all.

Can someone with access to weatherbell please post the 216 hr surface temp map (or max temp previous 6 hrs map if there is one)?  I know it'll change with each run, but I'm curious what kind of surface temp the Euro has to go along with the very warm-looking 500mb & 850 mb maps.  Thanks.

Got up to the upper 30s here in town.  The day started cold and did not go above freezing til this afternoon, though, so there was not much melting.

With the upcoming pattern, it should certainly help to be as far west and south of the lakes as possible.  The Euro has tempered the big warmth somewhat, but still has mid 50s to low 60s around here for at least tuesday through friday.

We just finally went above freezing.  Des Moines is upper 40s and sw Iowa is upper 50s.

12z GFS relaxed and flattened the flow a bit next week compared to the 00z, which sharpened the se CAN/ne US trough, so it's an improvement.  The models are in agreement there will be some persistent weakness across the eastern US into the extended range as a slow-moving low lifts out of the gulf.

There has been the hint of a little system moving across Iowa Sunday.  The GEM would drop a couple inches of snow here.

There's no more arctic crap, but the GFS is trying to keep some degree of the western ridge - eastern trough pattern going indefinitely.  We would still get some days in the 40s to low 50s here next week, but certainly nothing like what the Euro is showing.

Man, the new and improved GFS is all over the place with next week's pattern.  It was warm through the weekend, then turned cold late week, then backed off the cold this morning, now the 18z run cools off Tuesday and Wednesday and warms it up late week.  It's anyone's guess what the 00z run will show.  Wildy unstable.

On a side note, what are your guys' thoughts on severe weather this season?

With the strong bias toward a western ridge and eastern trough this year, it's tough to be optimistic about severe weather season.

Euro may have dialed back the Friday to Sunday temps, but midweek looks amazing.... 56, 66, 67 Tue/Wed/Thu here in CR.  That's going to feel like frickin beach weather after the last month.

So of course the 12z Euro takes a step toward the GFS/GEM, showing a piece of energy shooting east across southern Canada and swinging a cold front down across the midwest.  There is no blast of sub-zero 850 air, but it's certainly a cooler late week and weekend than previous runs predicted.

The Euro has also been dialing back the warmup Sunday and Monday.  It appears Tuesday and Wednesday will be the big warm days... maybe Thursday if the cold front can hold off another day.

UK still siding with the Euro, holding the Alaskan energy together and in place and not throwing a big piece of energy to the southeast, like the GFS/GEM, that drags cold air down and squashes the warm ridge.

Definitely a step back toward the Euro.  The 12z run slows the strong shortwave in western Canada slowing compared to previous runs.  Now, instead of diving right down into the upper midwest it ends up scooting more eastward across southern Canada.  It also allows the pacific low to get under it a little, which helps bump the warm ridge.

Edit:  It's certainly not warm later in the week and into the weekend.  It'd still be kinda lousy.  But, it's not real cold like previous runs.  In the 7-10 day period it's really trying hard to keep the ridge-west trough-east pattern established, though.

Man, they got a historic snowstorm down in Kentucky.  Several locations are now in the 21-23" range(they got 2" of rain, too).  We just can't get that kind of stuff up here.  The Superbowl storm was about as good as we can do and I only got 11.5" from it.  Sometimes it just pays to be closer to the moisture source.

GEM definitely took a step toward the GFS.  We need that pacific low to move eastward into the US and not cut off over the ocean.

Last few runs of the GFS have gone much colder late next week.  The 12z even brings a snow system through to replenish the snowpack that melts on Tuesday/Wednesday.

12z GGEM backed off the warmup a good bit later next week.  Using tropicaltidbits to compare the last few runs the trend is clearly to keep the southeast Canada & Great Lakes surface ridge a bit more entrenched each run.

Hopefully it will reverse and go back to a warmer solution, but we've seen this kind of thing before in spring when models will forecast a big warmup, but ultimately the warmup is held to the plains while the cool lakes ridge holds strong.

12z GFS backed off the warmth later next week.  It has a relatively mild Tue/Wed, but then pulls the warmth back into the plains and turns the flow off the cold lakes region, which is never a good thing in spring.  This time of year, especially, we need a south or southwest wind to really warm up.  A southeast wind might get us to the average temp, and an east wind off cold/frozen lakes is a real loser.

00z Euro with a massive widespread warm up now for most, if not, all of our region next Wed/Thu.  Nice southerly flow all the way up to the Canadian border.  It's trying to push 60's up into International Falls!  Spring fever will be in high gear next week.

Wisconsin Rapids February wrap up.

You really had a lousy snow season up there.

At the last minute some models added a band of heavier precip over ec/se Iowa, and they were right, but my 0.32" of precip only added up to 0.8 inches of snow/sleet.  The rest was freezing rain.

I think the plains will be a lot warmer than 60 next week.  They were in the 70s and 80s a month ago.  30s and 40s here this weekend should eat away at our 3-4 inch snowpack pretty quickly and leave us in good shape to see 50s(or even 60) next week.

So much for winter going out with a bang.  Last week's impressive model predictions for the weekend and midweek systems dropping huge snow on Iowa were ridiculously wrong.  Now it's looking pretty dead for the next week or two.

There was a lot of talk about the February into March pattern being very active with a lot of potential for some good storms, but the arctic blaster was too strong and the pattern too suppressed.  Maybe if the cold comes back later in the month there can be a biggie somewhere around here.

This system is dying on the models, becoming a total non-event.  The 12z nam only has a few hundredths of an inch of precip anywhere in Iowa.

Most of us are probably interested in all central-region storms (I've been following the current overrunning event to the southeast), but the people actually being affected by a storm are often the ones posting about it.  This forum doesn't seem to have many active members outside the Iowa to Chicago corridor.

Regarding the Tuesday system, I'm not too excited about it.  The Euro has been showing a few inches on the front end, although it's backing off just a bit.  Other models suggest a quick shot of mix to rain.

The real mild air doesn't arrive until beyond day 10, but all the models are showing it.  We may not be getting the big snow this weekend and midweek like models were suggesting last week, but now when the mild air moves in we won't have to melt nearly as much snow.