January 2016 Observations and Discussion

[Tom]

00z Euro on Tue/Wed's system for the Plains/Midwest...higher ratios should be considered with colder temps...

[NEJeremy]

I'm getting more and more interested on Tuesday's snowfall potential. Looks like it could be another 4-5" on top of the 1-2" we get tomorrow night. 

[NEJeremy]

18Z GFS has a nice 9-10" bullseye over eastern Nebraska from the next 2 storms through Wednesday. High ratios really helping out.

[gosaints]

18Z GFS has a nice 9-10" bullseye over eastern Nebraska from the next 2 storms through Wednesday. High ratios really helping out.

Nice hope u guys score

[Tom]

Would be nice if ORD had 6"+ snow OTG before this arctic air moves in.  It would rival some of the subzero air temp streaks we had the past 2 Winters (30+ hours or so). If we'd had done it this year, it would have been a 3-peat which I'm sure is probably pretty rare to see.  However, Winter isn't over just yet and maybe next month could deliver.  The benefit of having snow OTG when this type of cold hits is it insulates the ground and pipes don't burst as much.  We may see some of this over the weekend.

[Grizzcoat]

GGEM for both clippers in the next 4-5 days.

[Iowa2015]

Hopefully that verfiys it be around 6 inches for my area.

[Geos]

Would be nice if ORD had 6"+ snow OTG before this arctic air moves in.  It would rival some of the subzero air temp streaks we had the past 2 Winters (30+ hours or so). If we'd had done it this year, it would have been a 3-peat which I'm sure is probably pretty rare to see.  However, Winter isn't over just yet and maybe next month could deliver.  The benefit of having snow OTG when this type of cold hits is it insulates the ground and pipes don't burst as much.  We may see some of this over the weekend.

 

Still got snow cover up here. It's looking like it will get plenty cold this weekend. A fresh snow cover would help lower temps more.

Have a while yet, to put in place a fresh snow pack and make more runs below zero.

[westMJim]

The coldest its been here in Grand Rapids so far this winter is +10° so we will see if it gets colder then that this time around (my guess is it will) Getting light lake effect snow now here at my house. In look back I have to wonder when will the next (big time snow storm hit the great Lakes area?) may be the big storms like the ones in 1967 and 1978 were odd balls not to happen again for 100 years.

[jaster220]

The coldest its been here in Grand Rapids so far this winter is +10° so we will see if it gets colder then that this time around (my guess is it will) Getting light lake effect snow now here at my house. In look back I have to wonder when will the next (big time snow storm hit the great Lakes area?) may be the big storms like the ones in 1967 and 1978 were odd balls not to happen again for 100 years.

 

Strong storms like those two for the GL's have a decent frequency of ~30 yrs but they don't all focus on the same region of the GL's since it is a long way from western Lk. Superior to eastern Lk. Ontario. The fact that SWMI was more or less ground zero for those two mega-storms within 9 yrs of each other may have nixed our chances for a while. Having said that, GR and other cities in SWMI have scored well in at least two storms since those you listed. Jan '99 bliz that reached 20+ inches and GHD bliz that was ~17" (similar to Jan '67 for GR proper).  Here in Marshall, Jan '67 gave 20" on the 26/27th and Jan '78 gave the same 20" total on the same 26/27th (with a bonus 2" of LES on the 28th). In the last (2) winters I've gotten two 18" storms - Jan 2014 and Feb 2015. Both qualify as Big Dogs for this region and they were the first to reach those levels since the Jan '79 storm. I'm not sure we are really owed a mega-storm even though I personally would love to see one every season! We all know it doesn't work that way. I'm not sure what to think now. We may get another one yet this winter, and we may go into a dry stretch. One thing going for it this season is the high moisture era we continue to experience. Here's to hoping.

[Tom]

This arctic shot has to be close to as brutal as some of the ones that hit in '13-'14 & '14-'15...maybe not for ORD/MKE bc of lack of snow, but parts of IA/WI/MN/Dakotas/NE are seeing some nasty cold.

[jcwxguy]

dropped to -9 here this morning officially, unofficially -12 in parts of town 

[westMJim]

Strong storms like those two for the GL's have a decent frequency of ~30 yrs but they don't all focus on the same region of the GL's since it is a long way from western Lk. Superior to eastern Lk. Ontario. The fact that SWMI was more or less ground zero for those two mega-storms within 9 yrs of each other may have nixed our chances for a while. Having said that, GR and other cities in SWMI have scored well in at least two storms since those you listed. Jan '99 bliz that reached 20+ inches and GHD bliz that was ~17" (similar to Jan '67 for GR proper).  Here in Marshall, Jan '67 gave 20" on the 26/27th and Jan '78 gave the same 20" total on the same 26/27th (with a bonus 2" of LES on the 28th). In the last (2) winters I've gotten two 18" storms - Jan 2014 and Feb 2015. Both qualify as Big Dogs for this region and they were the first to reach those levels since the Jan '79 storm. I'm not sure we are really owed a mega-storm even though I personally would love to see one every season! We all know it doesn't work that way. I'm not sure what to think now. We may get another one yet this winter, and we may go into a dry stretch. One thing going for it this season is the high moisture era we continue to experience. Here's to hoping.

I will agree that there have been some good snow storms in the last 30+ years but in terms of 1. snow fall. 2. wind speed 3. which leads to drift depth 4. along with snow thunderstorms. the list of big snow storms that I have seen (and I did not live in the Grand Rapids area until 1984) for this list of storms I lived in the Bay City area.  The biggest storm with the highest drifts and most thunder and lightning was the January 1967 storm that had 23.8” in Saginaw but in Bay City we topped the 36” mark and had 20’ drifts. A close second was the January 1978 storm that dropped a reported 22.5” is Saginaw but in Bay City it was 31” with NE winds of 70 MPH and 15’ drifts. Another big storm was March 1973 with 21.3” in Saginaw and 24” in Bay City but this time the 60 to 70 MPH wind pushed water from the bay into Bay City and we had both a snowstorm and a flood at the same time. The storm of 1999 there was a lot of snow and while there was wind (and it may be that in Bay City the winds were higher because of coming off the bay) the drifts were much lower and there was little (if any) heavy thundersnow with that event. So IMO the biggest snowstorms I have ever seen were 1967, 1978 1973 and I will add 1999 but the 1999 event was a long duration event. Funny you added the the 1967 event for GR and most of the people who I talked to here dont seem to remember it all that much and they point out the 1978 storm.

[Tom]

dropped to -9 here this morning officially, unofficially -12 in parts of town 

Did you have any snow OTG prior to the light snows last night??

[jcwxguy]

Did you have any snow OTG prior to the light snows last night??

nope, at least in my area. there were spots around town where snow was piled up that was had just a little covering the ground. 

[Tom]

nope, at least in my area. there were spots around town where snow was piled up that was had just a little covering the ground. 

At least you don't have bare brown ground!  The worst..we have grass showing up around here but still enough snow to minimize the depressed look I guess.  I think you have a shot at some more snow later this week Thu/Fri with what looks to be a bowling ball type of storm.

[Tom]

Lake Effect bands stretching all the way into Lansing, MI this morning!  Pretty remarkable to see it snowing that far inland on westerly winds.

 

@ Jaster, are you seeing any snow from this???

[gabel23]

It's crazy in my area. I have had snow on the ground since christmas. I had a white thanksgiving, christmas, and new years. I now have a glacier in my yard also. The two days of 40 degrees this week depleted my snow depth from 6 down to 2. Then I received 2" last night pushing the snow depth up to 4. The 2" is crusted over and the snow I received last night was nothing but fluff. I'm hoping I can get another couple inches this week and keep the glacier in place!! 

[clintbeed1993]

It's crazy in my area. I have had snow on the ground since christmas. I had a white thanksgiving, christmas, and new years. I now have a glacier in my yard also. The two days of 40 degrees this week depleted my snow depth from 6 down to 2. Then I received 2" last night pushing the snow depth up to 4. The 2" is crusted over and the snow I received last night was nothing but fluff. I'm hoping I can get another couple inches this week and keep the glacier in place!! 

 

You have been in about the best spot in the entire state for snowfall.  This winter has just been so darn lame pretty much everywhere in the state.  I have yet to see more than 2 inches with any 1 system.  That's pretty sad.

[Geos]

This morning it dipped all the way to -3°, WC near -20°.

 

The day time high under performed here. Hit 3° and 3pm. Had an early morning high of 5°, which was close to the predicted high.

Already at 0°.

[gabel23]

You have been in about the best spot in the entire state for snowfall. This winter has just been so darn lame pretty much everywhere in the state. I have yet to see more than 2 inches with any 1 system. That's pretty sad.

I agree Clint, I really feel for you guys around the tri cities, I have been pretty lucky. My seasonal snowfall is around half for the entire year and we have the snowiest months ahead. I really hope/think we will see a monster around our area in feburary or March. The LRC looks to keep things active for us all the way through this summer; I really think this severe weather season will be one of the wildiest we have seen in a while....

[winterfreak]

Already down to two degrees. Pretty potent Artic airmass.

[Tom]

Mid-month temp departure update...Northern Plains have been by far the coldest thus far...

 

 

 

Models have trended the AO/NAO away from the positive territory of late...only a 1-2 day blip into positive territory then back slightly negative.  More importantly, GEFS are trending the PNA more towards neutral towards month's end.  Let's see if that works out.

 

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/pna/nao.sprd2.gif

 

 

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/daily_ao_index/ao.sprd2.gif

[Tom]

Northern Hemisphere snow cover above the last 2 severe winters...

 

http://www.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/smcd/emb/snow/plots/daily_snow_extent/multisensor_4km_nh_snow_extent_by_year_graph.png

 

Same goes for North America...

 

http://www.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/smcd/emb/snow/plots/daily_snow_extent/multisensor_4km_na_snow_extent_by_year_graph.png

[westMJim]

Still getting light snow here. Actually its snowing rather hard but with very small flake size.  Here at my house I have just over one inch of new snow over night and 4.5” on the ground. The temp at my house is now +12° and I had a low of +7° over at the airport they had a low of +8° making this the coldest low of the winter in Grand Rapids so far. So far this January Grand Rapids has a mean temp of 26.2° and that is good for +1.7° on the month. The airport has reported 12.8” of snow this month (about 22” is average) and for the season GR is now at 18.8” (about 42.2” would be average)

[Iowa2015]

12 plus Lucky you heat wave. Here it's -3 right now

[jaster220]

I will agree that there have been some good snow storms in the last 30+ years but in terms of 1. snow fall. 2. wind speed 3. which leads to drift depth 4. along with snow thunderstorms. the list of big snow storms that I have seen (and I did not live in the Grand Rapids area until 1984) for this list of storms I lived in the Bay City area.  The biggest storm with the highest drifts and most thunder and lightning was the January 1967 storm that had 23.8” in Saginaw but in Bay City we topped the 36” mark and had 20’ drifts. A close second was the January 1978 storm that dropped a reported 22.5” is Saginaw but in Bay City it was 31” with NE winds of 70 MPH and 15’ drifts. Another big storm was March 1973 with 21.3” in Saginaw and 24” in Bay City but this time the 60 to 70 MPH wind pushed water from the bay into Bay City and we had both a snowstorm and a flood at the same time. The storm of 1999 there was a lot of snow and while there was wind (and it may be that in Bay City the winds were higher because of coming off the bay) the drifts were much lower and there was little (if any) heavy thundersnow with that event. So IMO the biggest snowstorms I have ever seen were 1967, 1978 1973 and I will add 1999 but the 1999 event was a long duration event. Funny you added the the 1967 event for GR and most of the people who I talked to here dont seem to remember it all that much and they point out the 1978 storm.

 

   You're posting from GR, and your original post said 1967, so I just figured you were there all those years ago hence my details. Anyways, it's hard to imagine that 18" of wind driven snow would be forgettable, but GR was on the northern fringe of the heaviest stuff in '67. With their climo of big 3-4 day LES storm totals, perhaps that is why they don't consider it one of the most memorable epic storms?

 

Your list from Bay City is pretty incredible. I'm a Genesee County native myself and was aware of the totals you list for Saginaw/Tri-cities airport, but had never even heard about Bay City getting even more snow with help from those NE winds coming off Huron and funneling down Saginaw Bay. Further south version of Duluth's situation with big storms.

 

Of course Flint got 23" in 1967, so not that big of a contrast with Saginaw's 23.8" total. This huge difference goes to the Bliz of '78 when Flint only had around a foot, whilst Saginaw had the 22.5" total. Huge difference which I wasn't even aware of until this year when you posted that listing earlier - lol. 

[jaster220]

Lake Effect bands stretching all the way into Lansing, MI this morning!  Pretty remarkable to see it snowing that far inland on westerly winds.

 

@ Jaster, are you seeing any snow from this???

 

Not to disappoint Tom, but I actually was up in Lansing about 1:30 yesterday and the sun was out and blue skies. Whatever SHSN had gone on was so brief as to not really leave much fresh snow anywhere that I could see. I did get half an inch of light weight LES in Marshall overnight Saturday, and have a solid couple of inches OTG after the warm rainy melt-off Thursday-Friday. This round of cold is just too cold/dry (HP) for the better bands to survive this far inland. We don't have elevation to work with here in SMI, so we need SLP to promote buoyancy and moisture like last week's events. I was over in Allegan region last evening though, and it was really pounding the smaller LES flakes (2"/hr likely) with 3-4 inches even on the state trunk lines. Now that's more like it! Was gorgeous real winter there with 8-12" OTG and more coming down.   

[westMJim]

Had a very heavy snow shower come thru here and with heavy snow I picked up a fast (less then an hour) 2” of new snow.  Boy that was some fast dump of snow. 

[westMJim]

Here at my house I fell to -2° but at the airport it looks to only have gotten down to +2° either way this is the coldest we have seen in Grand Rapids this winter so far. And with yesterdays 2.6” of snow fall GR now has had 15.4” of snow this month and we are now up to 21.4” for the season so all in still not too bad for the snow lovers out there. I now have 6.5” of snow on the ground here at my house.

[jaster220]

LES + Clipper + LES  has given us Michiganders this (plus a bit more the last 24 hrs). Would've been really nice without the 1-1/2 day rainy meltdown. Due to that, some inland regions have only spotty snowcover.  

 

 

 

 

[Geos]

-3° here this morning. Makes the 6th morning below zero this winter.

Noticed models are showing a little LES on the west side of Lake Michigan on Friday in response to the cyclonic flow around the East Coast low.

[Niko]

Dipped down to a Brrr 7F last night.

[CentralNebWeather]

Stunned this morning to wake up to at least 4 inches of snow.  It is not measured yet, but from scooping that is what I guessed.  Our biggest snow in Holdrege this season.  More please.

[westMJim]

As of yesterday Grand Raids has had 16.4” of snow this month and is now at 22.4” for the season. And I now have 5.5” on the ground here in my yard. With a temp of 25° its warmer than it has been. At this time, I have some very fine snow falling here.  I feel a good bit better today (still not 100%) its now taken me 10 days to get over this I cannot remember being this sick for this long in a long, long time. I sure hope I do not have to go thru that again.

As we are leaving for Fort Myers on Saturday morning (yes driving) I have been keeping a close eye on the storm for tomorrow to our south. It looks like there will be a LOT  of snow in Kentucky here is todays brief update from  Louisville, KY.

 http://w2.weather.gov/media/lmk/briefing/Jan19_2016/Jan21_2016_4AM.pdf

I generally like to get to Bowling Green on the first day.  We will see how that goes. I will post updates on the snow in Kentucky and from Fort Myers next week.

[gabel23]

Stunned this morning to wake up to at least 4 inches of snow.  It is not measured yet, but from scooping that is what I guessed.  Our biggest snow in Holdrege this season.  More please.

Glad to hear Central, did you guys have school on time today? Hopefully we can get a beast that we all can share, I would expect to see one either in Feb. or March as historically that's when we usually see our biggest snows. 

[jaster220]

@ WestMJim

 

Glad you're doing better and have a safe trip down to the other peninsula we Michiganders call home.    My mother had a place in Venice for 19 yrs and I loved to visit in late winter. If all we're getting up here is a lot of cold and little snow, I'd rather be heading down there with y'all. I will say, usually it is ice storms that you run into driving down through KY and TN but this time they're getting our wx! Can't imagine doing those mountain grades with snowstorm conditions - stay safe!

[CentralNebWeather]

Yes, school on time with much grumbling from the students.  Many districts around here with late starts and some in Kansas were closed.  Just didn't have much wind to blow it around.  Had a custodian say that he measured 5 inches in the lot.  Will have to see the official reports later.  Side streets still a mess as bands of snow have been off and on all morning.  Still can't believe how this band set up about 10:30 last night and snowed most of the night through this morning.  About midnight we were around a mile visibility.  Beautiful winter wonderland outside.

[CentralNebWeather]

Our principal was just saying that he is glad we haven't used any of our snow days because in the last decade a good majority of our snow days have been in Feb., March, and April.

[Geos]

Congrats on the snow in Nebraska, it sounds like it was an over performer.

 

Cold and mostly sunny here today.