Hawkeye

Finally switched to snow here in the last 15 minutes.  It had been raining for several hours and totaled 0.20".

That warm tongue that popped up into Iowa today had some bad timing and was stubborn.

GFS is back to what it was showing yesterday morning.  The northern stream doesn't dig, so the sw conus energy/moisture doesn't get pulled up into our region.

Can we please just freeze that Euro graphic and thaw it out again on Saturday?

The latest Euro's 7-10 day period is looking pretty wintry as well... much more so than some recent runs.  The models have really been flopping around badly later in the range.

So far this morning the models have really backed off from the weekend snow event.

The 06z NAM went back west a bit and the 12z is west again, so it appears the Euro won the battle for NYC.  I sure would love to get a real blockbuster storm at some point.  Even with the Groundhog Day storm we were nw of the best snow.

I see the Euro has once again gone back to a very cold 6-10 day period.  These models can't decide what to do with the future cold shots.

Yeah, the GFS keeps the jet stream slamming into British Columbia indefinitely, which won't allow anything more than very brief modest cold shots, with nice warmups in between.

1.1" at my house.  I'm kinda glad that's all we got because trying to shovel 3-4 inches of this wet stuff would've sucked.

This could have been decent with some colder air.  There is a nice band of good snow that is now mostly south of Cedar Rapids, along I-80.  That's where the best totals should be.  I might end up with an inch.

The models were terrible with this system.

GFS and Euro are still showing a very cold arctic blast by next weekend.  The Euro appears to show a couple clipper type lows passing through Iowa on days 8 and 10, but I don't have access to the precip maps that far out.

Well, the 12z Euro did not move sw at all.  It's actually drier for Iowa and has the snow northeast of us.

12z UK has shifted sw some as well, especially for those of us in Iowa.

http://img.meteocentre.com/models/ukmet_amer_12/accum/PA_024-072_0000.gif

The GFS has taken quite a leap southwest.  Unfortunately, the surface air will be marginal for accumulating snow in Iowa.  The Euro continues to have us in the mid 30s during the best precip.  A few degrees colder and this would be a potential 3-5" snowfall.

Interesting.... the surface temp seems a little low around here given the mild 850 temp and sw wind.

Can someone with access to wxbell maps please post the 21z Wednesday (153 hrs) surface temp map?  That appears to be the warmest time of the entire period.

Up to 5 inches of snow fell nw of Dubuque overnight.  Dubuque got about 3".

GFS(and now the euro last night) is consistently showing a few inches of snow for eastern Iowa from Sunday's clipper.  This time the surface temp will be marginal so it will be a wetter snow.  It might not last long, though, as the GFS shows milder air flooding right back into the area.  Even beyond that, cold air continues to get pushed back even farther as the strong pacific flow into the pacnw doesn't allow arctic air to dig south.

CR airport is 37, but here in town it's 40, so we're overperforming a bit.  Southwest Iowa is approaching 60.

The best-case Euro solution would still miss those of us farther nw, but at least it would be interesting and would clobber some to the east.  The GFS this morning continues to show absolutely nothing but boring garbage suppression.

I finished with about 5.8 inches.  I expected uniform measurements because the wind was relatively light, but I had 5.9 to 6.0 on my snowboards and 5.6 or so on the patio.  I went with an average.  I can totally confirm the poor ratio reports from Des Moines, et al.  I melted down the gauge catch as well as a core sample and got a close average of 0.46".  That is not even 13 to 1.  All the pre-storm talk was ~20 to 1.  The wetter models were very close with the qpf.  The Euro, as I think it tends to do for clippers, was significantly too dry.

Picked up 1.2" overnight.

With the 12z run in range, the UK is a carbon copy of the GFS with a heavy band right across Iowa. 

http://img.meteocentre.com/models/ukmet_amer_12/accum/PA_048-072_0000.gif

00z NAM has all but nixed the storm for east-central Iowa.  It has a spritz late this evening and then a brief snow shower early sunday morning, that's it.  This winter has had nothing but disorganized, multi-piece, strung-out garbage.

If the Euro is not on board a farther nw snow band, neither am I.  The nw models were garbage with the last split flow crap storm.

The models show the northern energy moving onshore on Friday.