January 2024 Observations and Discussion

[hawkstwelve]

5 minutes ago, Clinton said:

0z GFS with another storm on the heels of next week's big one.  Might be good for folks up north.

12z GraphCast had a similar look but was quite a bit weaker, unfortunately. 

[hawkstwelve]

GFS with another one knocking on the door for the same areas hit by early next week's big kahuna. 

[hawkstwelve]

Missouri becomes Hoth, being buried under 45 inches. 

[hawkstwelve]

Pretty sizable shift on the GEFS for west coast trough/east coast ridge around day eight. 

00z vs 18z... 

[Clinton]

5 hours ago, hawkstwelve said:

Missouri becomes Hoth, being buried under 45 inches. 

We would party.  If that happened I would provide the beer and steak for everyone on here lol.

[Clinton]

6z GFS trying to sneak some light accumulations into western MO and mby Friday.

[westMJim]

7 hours ago, hawkstwelve said:

Missouri becomes Hoth, being buried under 45 inches

 

1 hour ago, Clinton said:

We would party.  If that happened I would provide the beer and steak for everyone on here lol.

I find that hard to believe! When was that the last time that did that happen?  

[westMJim]

The official H/L yesterday at Grand Rapids was 36/30 there was a reported trace of snowfall that was just some light flurries. The sun was out just 3% of the time. For today the average H/L is 32/21 the record high of 59 was set in 2004 the record low of -9 was set in 2014. The wettest was 1.50”in 1897 the most snowfall of 9.1” fell in 1999. The most on the ground was 14” in 1979. Last  year the H/L was 40/33 and there was 0.33” of rainfall.

 

[westMJim]

Some weather history for southern Lower Michigan for January 3

1897: Warm and wet weather prevails as a cold front approaches. High temperatures in the 50s are followed by heavy rain. This is the wettest January day on record at Muskegon, with nearly 5 inches of rain.

1918: The temperature falls to a record low of 16 below zero at Muskegon during one of the coldest months on record in Lower Michigan.

1879, the second day in a row of record lows were reported at Detroit. Today the temperature was a cold 15 degrees below zero.

Some weather history across the USA

1883: A remarkably brilliant meteor display occurred on the night of January 3rd. The phenomenon was observed at stations in Wisconsin, Michigan, Missouri, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. This meteor was described as having resembled a large, bright ball of fire.

1886: A severe ice storm struck portions of northeastern Iowa when heavy accumulations of freezing rain brought down trees and branches across the area. An observer near Garnavillo in Clayton County wrote that “the rain…mostly froze as it fell, and coated twigs of trees with ice an inch thick, and many trees were seriously broken. Our telephone wires were broken in many places. Large old trees and large limbs broken. In the woods, many trees bent their tops, so the ground and the roads were impassible until the treetops were cut off.” In Fayette County, it was reported that “ice formed on the trees so thick that many limbs, from four to eight inches through, were broken and the tops of the trees, thirty feet high, rested on the ground in many instances blockading the roads.” An observer at Waukon noted that “ice formed on the trees to such an extent that in very many cases our shade trees were ruined. All afternoon and night, it was a continual crash.”

1949: During the late afternoon hours, an estimated F4 tornado destroyed Warren, Arkansas. The tornado killed 55 people and injured more than 250 others. The destruction of the Bradley mill displaced 1,000 employees.

2000: Two F3 tornadoes struck northwest Kentucky late in the afternoon of January 3. Owensboro, Kentucky, sustained the most severe damage and the highest number of injuries.

[Clinton]

21 minutes ago, westMJim said:

 

I find that hard to believe! When was that the last time that did that happen?  

February of '11 snowiest stretch I can remember. Close to 40 inches for the month.

[Minny_Weather]

Suddenly, I'm liking my chance of a multi-inch snowfall from the weak SLP on Friday & Saturday.

Another trend that models have been picking up on is a nice clipper on Thursday of next week. Both GFS and Euro put out borderline warning levels of snow. GFS bullseyes me, while Euro keeps heavier totals up in Canada. Something to watch. 

[chescowxman]

A frosty start to our morning across the county. Lows have ranged from as low as 21.1 in Warwick Twp. to as high as 27.9 in Atglen. The next couple of days should continue to be seasonably cold with highs near 40 degrees in most spots. We turn colder on Friday and Saturday with temps struggling to get much above the low 30's. Today marks the 662nd straight day (since March 12, 2022) that we will fail to record 1.0" of snow this breaks the old record of 661 days from February 24, 1972 till December 16, 1973. Of note during that time back in 1972-73 we measured no snow at all. That record will remain in place as we have actually recorded 9 days during this time frame with measurable snow of greater than 0.2". We only went 278 days between measurable snow here in East Nantmeal from March 12, 2022 till December 15, 2022 - when we recorded 0.5" of snow. However, it does look increasingly likely that we will record at least 1" of snow on Saturday the 6th. In fact the NWS at PHL/Mount Holly has placed Western Chester County in the zone of best chance for accumulating snow. This is still not a forecast so stay tuned.

[Tom]

Alright, alright, alright...here we go!  Lets kick off this storm parade with a nice little snow up north....

[Beltrami Island]

If you asked my ideal winter 500mb pattern over North America.  This is what I would draw.  If this pattern sets up for a few weeks there is so much potential for clipper train over the northern US but at the same time all it takes is a clipper/pacific wave to dig a little SE from the PNW and Colorado lows are easily possible that have plenty of cold water to work with...

The biggest problem right now is El Ninos tend to never actually achieve this setup, it stays 10 days out in the computers and never becomes reality. If this were a la nina or anything besides a moderate/strong el nino I would be pretty giddy.    

[Andie]

22 minutes ago, Tom said:

Alright, alright, alright...here we go!  Lets kick off this storm parade with a nice little snow up north....

Oh Waaaah!  Snow in beautiful No. Az!!   
I’m weeping for ya!

I have family in Tucson and the mountains around the city are gorgeous when there’s snow on the caps.  

[Tom]

4 minutes ago, Andie said:

Oh Waaaah!  Snow in beautiful No. Az!!   
I’m weeping for ya!

I have family in Tucson and the mountains around the city are gorgeous when there’s snow on the caps.  

They will be snow capped by next Monday as the colder storm rolls through...I'm starting to look around for a cabin up in the White Mtn's for this weekend into MON.  I yearning for a cold and snowy storm system!

[bud2380]

12z GFS hitting parts of KS and OK with snow on Friday.

 

[bud2380]

Some modest totals, but here it is.

 

[Clinton]

5 minutes ago, bud2380 said:

Some modest totals, but here it is.

 

It's been a very slow trend but it's been inching east.  I hope it can hold together long enough.

[hawkstwelve]

I'll happily take this improvement on the GFS with the Wed/Thurs system.

[hawkstwelve]

CMC keeps that system further south...

[hawkstwelve]

Here comes round #2 (#3?) for the southern plains. Almost the exact same look as the Monday system.

[bud2380]

1 minute ago, hawkstwelve said:

Here comes round #2 (#3?) for the southern plains. Almost the exact same look as the Monday system.

That would be completely insane if KS & MO are getting hit with all this snow while areas to the north all the way up to Canada have bare ground.  

[Andie]

2 hours ago, Tom said:

They will be snow capped by next Monday as the colder storm rolls through...I'm starting to look around for a cabin up in the White Mtn's for this weekend into MON.  I yearning for a cold and snowy storm system!

Won’t be hard to find.  Especially the closer you are to Flagstaff.  
post pictures!

[Black Hole]

I've been thinking hard about our snow chances tomorrow in northeast OK. It's a weird set up, no two ways about it. There is no real cold air ahead of time and we will have a warm advection profile in the lower atmosphere. However, it's coming at night, the system has trended colder and wetter, and in spite of the warm advection profile the air temperature will be similar upstream limiting actual warming. Given all that and model forecasts I do think we at least see some snow in the air and getting up to a few tenths of an inch wouldn't surprise me too much. I think some areas further north and west may pick up 1-2" tomorrow morning. 

[Hoosier]

The pattern through at least mid-month really looks like it could do some damage and make up for lost time.  Best potential for a fast rally looks like roughly the middle 1/3 of the country (probably too warm farther south and northern 1/3 could be dealing with some suppression in terms of the bigger action).

[hawkstwelve]

Brrrr...

[bud2380]

Next Thursday on the GFS. Active weather continues.

 

[hawkstwelve]

Geez Louise. There is a new storm every 36-48 hours next week...

[CentralNebWeather]

18z GFS with the storm train. My gosh. 

[CentralNebWeather]

Just now, hawkstwelve said:

Geez Louise...

If only half of these storm amounts came true, we’d have quite a glacier around the center of the country. Gracious. 

[hawkstwelve]

Wow. I can't wait to see the totals across our sub on this run.

 

Edit: Here's a preview...

[CentralNebWeather]

I would take 1/3 of what the models are throwing out with this run. 

[hawkstwelve]

The GFS says, "Did the first storm miss you? Don't worry, one of the next three storms should do the trick."

[CentralNebWeather]

3 minutes ago, hawkstwelve said:

Wow. I can't wait to see the totals across our sub on this run.

 

Edit: Here's a preview...

Fun to look at. 

[james1976]

Yeah that storm 13th-15th keeps showing up.

[CentralNebWeather]

1 minute ago, james1976 said:

Yeah that storm 13th-15th keeps showing up.

That looks like it would potentially be a blizzard. We can dream. I will say it looks like a great setup for storminess. This would makeup for many bad winters a lot of people on this forum have had to endure. Cautiously waiting. 

[hawkstwelve]

An encouraging sign that lends some credence to the 18z GFS solution (although, perhaps not to that degree) is that it isn't really a one-off run that we can just write off as being in la la land. There have been other runs that look similar, like the 12z EPS control. 

I'm starting to get the feeling that next week and into next weekend is going to be quite eventful around here for many people. Of course it's never too late for a rug pull and warm rain but man, there is actually some pretty decent agreement on the big pieces being on the board. 

[Tom]

1 hour ago, hawkstwelve said:

The GFS says, "Did the first storm miss you? Don't worry, one of the next three storms should do the trick."

As @Grizzcoat would say, a visitor will cometh..."The Nanook From the North"...lay down that glacier and some real Severe Cold is on the table.  Wowza!

[Minny_Weather]

Every GFS ensemble member gives me a multi-inch snowfall on Saturday.... except the operational. Euro looks good for me. I'm confident that I'll finally establish a nice base and this stupid brown ground will finally go away for good.