Pre-Christmas Storm Plains/MW/GL 12/21-12/22

[Andie]

DFW is getting the lake effect flurries forecast yesterday.  

Talk about uncommon.  I live near one of the lakes and it’s just so strange to be so localized.  

Currently 17*   Snow flurries. 
Wind 30-42 mph NNW
Humidity 60%

[james1976]

1 hour ago, hawkstwelve said:

New daily snowfall record set at MSP yesterday.

 

Nice! That's exactly what I measured here

[james1976]

Couldn't get the snowblower started so I shoveled. That was some work! There is a lot of snow OTG!

[jaster220]

14 minutes ago, Andie said:

DFW is getting the lake effect flurries forecast yesterday.  

Talk about uncommon.  I live near one of the lakes and it’s just so strange to be so localized.  

Currently 17*   Snow flurries. 
Wind 30-42 mph NNW
Humidity 60%

Did it happen in Feb '21 cold wave too? Or is this kind of a 70's show thing?

[jaster220]

9 minutes ago, james1976 said:

Couldn't get the snowblower started so I shoveled. That was some work! There is a lot of snow OTG!

Shoveled my first winter in NWMI snow belt. Fortunately is was a weak winter 90-91. Sides, I was in my mid-20's LOL

[jaster220]

GFS - and goes to 965 mb like the Euro

[jaster220]

Lots of reds purples and pinks! Looks a bit lame GRR's northern tier not bumped to a BW when APX even included their far SE counties.

#frozennation

[Clinton]

6 minutes ago, jaster220 said:

GFS - and goes to 965 mb like the Euro

Good luck buddy, hope you score bigly!

[jaster220]

1 minute ago, Clinton said:

Good luck buddy, hope you score bigly!

Thanks for that Clinton! Was it Mon or Tues I about melted-down when the GooFuS swung way the heck west of The Mitt and @Money couldn't show the next model run fast enough as it buried his back yard. By the next morning I had chilled and written this off as being anything noteworthy. Won't be deep here, but as @CentralNebWeather's photos showed, only takes about 4" to have a very satisfying look and feel for the holidays. How did you end up?

[FV-Mike]

Down to 18 here. winds howling

[Hawkeye]

I just got done blowing a couple driveways and sidewalks.  The blower worked flawlessly, but when I got back to my garage to put it away there was oil leaking all over the left side of the blower.  Crap!

[Clinton]

8 minutes ago, jaster220 said:

Thanks for that Clinton! Was it Mon or Tues I about melted-down when the GooFuS swung way the heck west of The Mitt and @Money couldn't show the next model run fast enough as it buried his back yard. By the next morning I had chilled and written this off as being anything noteworthy. Won't be deep here, but as @CentralNebWeather's photos showed, only takes about 4" to have a very satisfying look and feel for the holidays. How did you end up?

Close to 3 inches, it's blowing alot.  I have to give a tip of the cap to yesterdays 12z NAM it showed me with 3.3 inches.

[Clinton]

Noon Wind Chills from the KC area.

Thursday Noon Wind Chills: Kansas City Int'l: -25 F Kansas City Dntn: -27 F Gardner, KS: -32 F (!) Olathe, KS: -26 F Lee's Summit: -30 F (!) St. Joseph: -32 F (!) Chillicothe: -21 F Sedalia: -21 F Kirksville: -25 F Whiteman AFB: -24 F

[jaster220]

SR Meso models want to run the developing SLP right over SEMI. Less friendly on the front side, but they seem to make up for it by delivering more W to E bands of snow off Lake Michigan well into Sat/Sat night. Prolly not the heaviest of SN, but with the winds and snow on the ground by then, it could make out county areas very nasty.

[jaster220]

13 minutes ago, Clinton said:

Noon Wind Chills from the KC area.

Thursday Noon Wind Chills: Kansas City Int'l: -25 F Kansas City Dntn: -27 F Gardner, KS: -32 F (!) Olathe, KS: -26 F Lee's Summit: -30 F (!) St. Joseph: -32 F (!) Chillicothe: -21 F Sedalia: -21 F Kirksville: -25 F Whiteman AFB: -24 F

NOT looking forward to the bitter tbh

[Andie]

46 minutes ago, jaster220 said:

Did it happen in Feb '21 cold wave too? Or is this kind of a 70's show thing?

We got flurries when it came in then a little more late morning.  I think we ended up with about 1.5-2”.  
But that cattle weren’t happy. Frozen really!

[tStacsh]

2 minutes ago, jaster220 said:

NOT looking forward to the bitter tbh

me neither.  Although I'm "insulated" still gonna be terrible for here.  

[jaster220]

GRR overnight a little contradictory

Potential for higher end lake effect accumulations seems mitigated
somewhat by strong winds and low inversion heights around 5 kft
and cold temps in the teens. Those thermal profiles will support a
very dry powdery snow and it is tough to get prolific lake effect
snow accumulations in any one spot given this scenario.

On the other hand a persistent convergence band with strong
omegas in the 1000-850 mb and 925-850 mb layers will set up from
KMKG to KGRR southward as well as mostly west of US-131 to near
the Lake MI shoreline where heavy lake effect snow is likely. This
notion is also supported by the 00Z HREF.

[earthandturf]

10 minutes ago, Andie said:

We got flurries when it came in then a little more late morning.  I think we ended up with about 1.5-2”.  
But that cattle weren’t happy. Frozen really!

The cattle look like they're starving. 

[Clinton]

3 minutes ago, hawkstwelve said:

So comparing that total to those numbers you posted from 12z runs yesterday for YBY looks like HRRR was closest followed by NAM, Euro/ICON (tie), RAP, FV3, GFS, and finally RGEM and CMC.

I've never been a huge fan of the HRRR but this is at least the second or third time that it has been among the models that gets closest to the actual totals. Maybe I need to start giving it more credence. I think the Euro and ICON were also at the head of the pack when I did this test during the storm back at the end of November. RGEM did surprisingly poor with this setup.

Of course this is just using a snapshot of what one run shows on each model but I always find it interesting to see how they stack up.

The HRRR did wonder higher as the night went on.  The NAM stayed the same mostly on the 18z and 0z runs.

[westMJim]

Radar indicates that light snow will start soon here in the Grand Rapids metro area. The snow is ornated in a NE to SW line but not heavy as of yet. It is much warmer on our side of the lake then on the other side. At this time it is 33 to 35 on our side of the lake. On the other side it is now 19 at Milwaukee, 27 at Chicago, 9 at Rockford, IL 4 at Madison, WI and well below zero to the west of there. There is light snow fall at several locations. The visibilities are not too bad at this time. Also winds are still not bad yet. Light snow has just started here.

[tbone8]

Light grainy snow here by LaPorte, temp 32.0°, calm winds. Feels like it is gonna break loose, the calm before the storm so to speak...

[Ottawa CO, MI]

27 minutes ago, jaster220 said:

GRR overnight a little contradictory

Potential for higher end lake effect accumulations seems mitigated
somewhat by strong winds and low inversion heights around 5 kft
and cold temps in the teens. Those thermal profiles will support a
very dry powdery snow and it is tough to get prolific lake effect
snow accumulations in any one spot given this scenario.

On the other hand a persistent convergence band with strong
omegas in the 1000-850 mb and 925-850 mb layers will set up from
KMKG to KGRR southward as well as mostly west of US-131 to near
the Lake MI shoreline where heavy lake effect snow is likely. This
notion is also supported by the 00Z HREF.

Yeah, they are confused.  Just like the TV folks. Bottom line here is this… The low is going further east and will reduce our snow totals dramatically. I live 15 miles west of Grand Rapids and I expect to get about 8 inches total.

[jaster220]

6 minutes ago, westMJim said:

Radar indicates that light snow will start soon here in the Grand Rapids metro area. The snow is ornated in a NE to SW line but not heavy as of yet. It is much warmer on our side of the lake then on the other side. At this time it is 33 to 35 on our side of the lake. On the other side it is now 19 at Milwaukee, 27 at Chicago, 9 at Rockford, IL 4 at Madison, WI and well below zero to the west of there. There is light snow fall at several locations. The visibilities are not too bad at this time. Also winds are still not bad yet. Light snow has just started here.

With the plunging of temps, this could/should verify as a "severe blizzard" ala '78

[jaster220]

4 minutes ago, Ottawa CO, MI said:

Yeah, they are confused.  Just like the TV folks. Bottom line here is this… The low is going further east and will reduce our snow totals dramatically. I live 15 miles west of Grand Rapids and I expect to get about 8 inches total.

SR models have it taking a more west track, so not sure where you are seeing that? was 40F here in the last hour which wasn't supposed to happen based on the further east tracks flashed by globals. Still tbd like these bomb storms usually always have been down thru history

[jaster220]

RGEM and NAM similar in strength at 1 am but NAM reflecting further N SLP.

[Andie]

40 minutes ago, earthandturf said:

The cattle look like they're starving. 

Longhorns are wild range cattle and can live off the land with no feed from us.  But yeah, they could use meal! 

[OmahaSnowFan]

-15.2 was the low at about 8 this morning. Minimum windchill recorded on my WS was -39.8.

It’s “warmed” back up to -8.1, but the wind gusts have fallen back to ~30 mph.

Had a peak wind gust of 45.0 mph on my WS just after 1am.

[tStacsh]

7 minutes ago, jaster220 said:

RGEM and NAM similar in strength at 1 am but NAM reflecting further N SLP.

 

Storms like these have surprises the models won't pick up on.   How quickly does it intensify?   20-30 miles on track either way  make a HUGE difference.  Lake effect/enhancement will happen until Saturday night.  Wind direction makes a difference.  If the wind isn't as strong, expect MORE LES on the west side.  This is a nowcast.   

[tStacsh]

18 minutes ago, Ottawa CO, MI said:

Yeah, they are confused.  Just like the TV folks. Bottom line here is this… The low is going further east and will reduce our snow totals dramatically. I live 15 miles west of Grand Rapids and I expect to get about 8 inches total.

You're in for 12+.  It's literally going to snow for the next 60 hours where you are.  WNW wind will do you nicely.  Unless it blows over your head.  A more NW wind will really bury you.  

[westMJim]

13 minutes ago, Ottawa CO, MI said:

Yeah, they are confused.  Just like the TV folks. Bottom line here is this… The low is going further east and will reduce our snow totals dramatically. I live 15 miles west of Grand Rapids and I expect to get about 8 inches total.

I live about 2 miles east of the Kent/Ottawa county line in Walker. In the past windy and cold did not produce as much snow but there should/could be a lot of blowing snow. The lake effect snow should have very small flake size at least that has been the case in the past. If the winds were not real strong then near the lake there would be a better chance of larger flakes and thus more snow. One event that did have a lot of lake effect snow was the January 2 to the 6th 1999 event that had a storm total at Grand Rapids of 25.8" At Muskegon the total was 28.5" and 11.8" at Lansing that was a system snow then lake effect snow event.

 

[OmahaSnowFan]

Short video from when it was coming down the hardest. Found an open spot up on a hill and still underwhelming 

[westMJim]

8 minutes ago, tStacsh said:

WNW wind will do you nicely.  Unless it blows over your head.  A more NW wind will really bury you.  

A WNW wind is not as bad as a NW wind here in GR a the more west the better and even a WSW wind is good as that is what we had with last weeks event.

[Ottawa CO, MI]

3 minutes ago, westMJim said:

A WNW wind is not as bad as a NW wind here in GR a the more west the better and even a WSW wind is good as that is what we had with last weeks event.

Correct. Hudsonville benefits from a WSW wind and a W wind. NW winds keep heavy snows to our west. 

[tStacsh]

1 minute ago, Ottawa CO, MI said:

Correct. Hudsonville benefits from a WSW wind and a W wind. NW winds keep heavy snows to our west. 

Everything I've read is winds will be from W to WNW

[tStacsh]

Snow hath begun.  

[gimmesnow]

Am I missing something or is this basically just cold and a few inches of snow for southern Wisconsin. Looks like all the models I've seen on tropicaltidbits dropped totals massively for me in the last day.

[Tony]

Coming down at a good clip now, windy and getting mighty cold. I'm sure roads are getting bad.

[East Dubzz]

Seems like the DBQ airport had 2.7". That seems like a reasonable measurement, though I honestly would have guessed maybe an inch more. But it's been a bit since we've seen snow, so maybe my eyes are deceiving me. 

[Tom]

Just now, Tony said:

Coming down at a good clip now, windy and getting mighty cold. I'm sure roads are getting bad.

They are getting very slick!  At times, viz drops to 1/4 mi.  Doing some last min holiday shopping.  This has definitely put me in the holiday and festive mood!  Love daytime snows.