January 17-19 Plains-Midwest Snowfall

[Hoosier]

Doesn't look like a huge system overall, but should be a fairly widespread snow producer.

On Wed into Thu, a frontogenesis band could deliver a narrow zone of snow somewhere, and then there's the more widespread snow coming in behind that.  

[Hoosier]

For Chicago area folks, looks like lake enhancement could get going as early as very late Thursday or Friday morning at the latest.  That should boost amounts lakeside (haven't heard that much so far this season) as parameters look pretty good for enhancement.  After that, lake parameters only improve but the band movement could get a little chaotic later Friday and Saturday as potential mesolow development comes into play.  With time, should see the focus tend to shift into northwest IN.

[hawkstwelve]

12z CMC ensembles seem to be zeroing in on the path.

12z vs 00z comparison...

[Tom]

28 minutes ago, Hoosier said:

For Chicago area folks, looks like lake enhancement could get going as early as very late Thursday or Friday morning at the latest.  That should boost amounts lakeside (haven't heard that much so far this season) as parameters look pretty good for enhancement.  After that, lake parameters only improve but the band movement could get a little chaotic later Friday and Saturday as potential mesolow development comes into play.  With time, should see the focus tend to shift into northwest IN.

Loved tracking Lehs/LES setups in NE IL and with a very cold airmass in check and the waters have cooled some since the last storm, I would think the lakeside counties can bump up totals a few inches.  Heck, I've seen similar situations where that band sits in Cook county and dumps snow before it swings into NW IN.

[metallica470]

2 minutes ago, Tom said:

Loved tracking Lehs/LES setups in NE IL and with a very cold airmass in check and the waters have cooled some since the last storm, I would think the lakeside counties can bump up totals a few inches.  Heck, I've seen similar situations where that band sits in Cook county and dumps snow before it swings into NW IN.

One of my recent favorites was the February 2021 lake effect!

[Tom]

8 minutes ago, metallica470 said:

One of my recent favorites was the February 2021 lake effect!

That’s the one!  Yes, remember this one vividly…MDW ended up with a lot of snow that winter as they seemed to score more often than not on the Lehs/LES that season.

[Tom]

@Jaycee_CHI was living in the Wrigleyville area iirc where it dumped snow.

[Hoosier]

10 minutes ago, Tom said:

Loved tracking Lehs/LES setups in NE IL and with a very cold airmass in check and the waters have cooled some since the last storm, I would think the lakeside counties can bump up totals a few inches.  Heck, I've seen similar situations where that band sits in Cook county and dumps snow before it swings into NW IN.

I checked the water temps and was surprised that this massive cold spell didn't cool them a bit more.  Chicago shore is down to 34, but the Crib is 37 and the mid-lake buoy is still 41.  I think that mid-lake temp is only like 1 degree cooler than it was before the big cold hit.  But anyway, this airmass is a totally different beast than what we've had and will ensure that temps stay well below freezing even at lakeside.  The lake effect parameters later Friday into Saturday become pretty high-end... they're the kind of parameters that I have seen result in snowfall rates of at least 2-4" per hour in the past.  The big question is how much will that band be moving around.

[hawkstwelve]

RRFS experimental model, which "represents the evolution of the NAM, RAP, HRRR, and HREF modeling systems" per NOAA, looks extremely close to the RDPS/GEM/ICON solution.

 

[hawkstwelve]

12z UKMET and ECMWF runs both with a jump north when compared to their previous run.

[Hoosier]

GFS and Euro are tamer overall compared to the other models.  Would suggest that the NWS forecasts may be subdued for now.

[Minny_Weather]

59 minutes ago, hawkstwelve said:

12z UKMET and ECMWF runs both with a jump north when compared to their previous run.

That doesn't surprise me. Clippers tend to trend North over time.

[bud2380]

18z NAM cut back on totals quite a bit.  But still pretty solid.  

 

[hawkstwelve]

18z ICON trend over past three runs...

[Jaycee_CHI]

3 hours ago, Tom said:

@Jaycee_CHI was living in the Wrigleyville area iirc where it dumped snow.

OMG YES ONE OF MY FAVORITE STORMS EVER!

 

 

 

[bud2380]

18z RDPS

[metallica470]

8 hours ago, Tom said:

That’s the one!  Yes, remember this one vividly…MDW ended up with a lot of snow that winter as they seemed to score more often than not on the Lehs/LES that season.

I was driving to Midway after work that evening. That was the heaviest snow I have ever seen. It was like someone was throwing massive snowballs one after another.  I had the windshield wipers on full speed and it couldnt keep up. The guy driving in front of me was leaning out his window trying to brush the snow off his windshield as the snow was piling up so quickly on the side. 

[Tom]

9 hours ago, metallica470 said:

I was driving to Midway after work that evening. That was the heaviest snow I have ever seen. It was like someone was throwing massive snowballs one after another.  I had the windshield wipers on full speed and it couldnt keep up. The guy driving in front of me was leaning out his window trying to brush the snow off his windshield as the snow was piling up so quickly on the side. 

Do you live anywhere close to the lake?

[Tom]

06z GEFS...Lower Lakes looks to be the target as well as the OHV...the Lake Effect signal is robust!

 

[Tom]

0z Canadian...

 

 

0z RDPS...

[Tom]

0z/06z NAM really targeting NE IL in NW IN...this setup is looking prime time... @indianajohn @Hoosier @tbone8 This event could and SHOULD make up for lost time!

 

[Tom]

06z HRRR... @hawkstwelve looking pretty good and into IA...

[Tom]

Gotta love Izzi's wording in his overnight AFD...

Quote

Friday through Tuesday...

Key Messages:

* Reinforcing shot of Arctic air arrives Friday into Friday night
* Intense single band lake effect snow plume will likely affect
  our northwest Indiana Counties at times Friday/Friday night with
  potentially locally crippling snowfall rates in the heart of the
  band

 

[Tom]

Wowza!  I haven't read this kinda Lake Effect scenario as long as I've lived in Chicago...man, this could be a hellova period for you guys in NW IN!

Quote

Lake effect:

At this point, synoptic background flow would strongly suggest
the lake effect parameters are virtually all progged to reach the
upper echelons of favorable Friday into Friday night. Sharp upper
trough/upper low should result in low tropopause and very cold
air aloft, setting the stage for very deep lake induced
convection. Lake induced instability is expected to be extreme
with lake-850 delta-t values >20C and lake-700 delta-t values
>30C! In addition, gradient is expected to be weak enough to allow
for a strong land breeze convergence zone to develop over the
lake and likely lead to a dominant, very intense single band late
Thursday night through Friday night, probably peaking in intensity
Friday night when instability and convergence are maximized.

All indications are that this band will waffle around from
inception through Friday night. Currently, looks like it could
briefly impact Porter County late Thursday night into Friday
morning before probably shifting east of Porter County during the
day Friday. Friday evening, models show a secondary surface trough
moving down the lake, causing winds to veer a bit more northerly,
likely causing the band to shift back into Porter and possibly
Lake Counties. Worth noting that it is likely that guidance will
vary on placement of this band over the coming days, so it is too
early to lock into too many details.

If what models are showing for this lake effect set-up is
anywhere close to verifying, then potential would be there for
3"+/hour snowfall rates under this band. This will be something to
closely watch in coming days.

 

[Tom]

12z HRRR...starting to show a really intriguing Lake Plume into SE WI & NE IL...

[hawkstwelve]

Nice jump on the 12z FV3. It's finally starting to show the placement of the CMC/RDPS/ICON.

Speaking of which, it may be a bit early to hand out model awards for this system but assuming it ends up close as currently modeled, this will be a big win for the CMC. It has stuck with this axis placement since the beginning and hardly ever wavered. GFS has been on the other end, playing catch-up to the other models as it had remained steadfast on the more southern and weaker solution. ECMWF has been somewhere in the middle, sometimes more north (CMC) and sometimes more south (GFS) depending on the run. 

[hawkstwelve]

As an example of the CMC consistency, here are the last eight runs for 24-hour kuchera snowfall ending midnight Friday. Slight wobbles here or there but never once jumped on to the GFS's seemingly wrong outcome. Also included an eight run trend gif for the GFS. Notice how it's slowly made it's way to the solution the CMC has shown practically since the beginning.

Overall major props to the Canadians, again assuming this is how it will play out tomorrow.

[Tom]

2 minutes ago, hawkstwelve said:

As an example of the CMC consistency, here are the last eight runs for 24-hour kuchera snowfall ending midnight Friday. Slight wobbles here or there but never once jumped on to the GFS's seemingly wrong outcome. Also included an eight run trend gif for the GFS. Notice how it's slowly made it's way to the solution the CMC has shown practically since the beginning.

Overall major props to the Canadians, again assuming this is how it will play out tomorrow.

The Canadians are really good models for clippers or these PAC Hybrid systems.  Euro and GFs nasso much!  Looks like a nice spread the wealth across the MW into Lower Lakes before the last cold shot this weekend.

[indianajohn]

2 hours ago, Tom said:

0z/06z NAM really targeting NE IL in NW IN...this setup is looking prime time... @indianajohn @Hoosier @tbone8 This event could and SHOULD make up for lost time!

 

Looks promising but I don’t like to get overly excited for forecasted LES events.. they usually don’t pan out for lake county, Indiana. 

[james1976]

MSP can't get anything going this winter. Maybe we will this spring. Lol

[Niko]

I think a good snowfall is headed for all of SMI w/ a 2 day total (Thurs & Fri) of 4-8"+ in the cards, followed by another arctic airmass over the weekend. Also, very high ratios will probably make for higher accumulations.

Watch, instead of a WSW, my area as usual will be put into a WWA per Dtw Crew.

[hawkstwelve]

Picked four 12z models that I believe have had the best handle on this system so far (CMC, ICON, RDPS, and semi-reluctantly the NAM) and the average of those four puts Sioux Falls at about 4.5 inches. CMC/RDPS are identical in amounts for here, showing the higher end 5.6 inches while the other two are in the 3-3.5 inch range.

NWS FSD has for whatever reason believed the GFS up to this point and continues to paint the higher totals down to my SW closer to the Missouri River Valley. They're currently calling for 1-2 inches for Sioux Falls. I'd imagine that will change by this afternoon's forecast package. I'm thinking 3-6 is a pretty decent call for here at this point. 

[bud2380]

15z RAP

[Hoosier]

3 hours ago, Tom said:

0z/06z NAM really targeting NE IL in NW IN...this setup is looking prime time... @indianajohn @Hoosier @tbone8 This event could and SHOULD make up for lost time!

 

Best window this far west could be early Friday.  After the band moves back east, not sure how far west we can get it to come later Friday into Saturday.  Fully agree with Izzi's comments about the rates in the afd though, probably because I mentioned something like that yesterday.  

[bud2380]

Canadian remains strong.

 

[hawkstwelve]

12z GEFS probabilities of > 1 inch of snowfall. This is a comparison from the 12z run yesterday. Over the span of those 24 hours we went from 0-10% chance to almost 60-70% chance. 

GFS and it's ensemble suite continue to play catch-up on this system. Not sure I will believe much of anything it says over the next 24 hours before the storm moves in. Sticking mainly with the CMC/RDPS/ICON seems to be the best plan. 

[hawkstwelve]

By comparison, here is the 12z CMC ensembles today vs the 12z run from yesterday. Love the consistency. 

[Tom]

1 hour ago, Hoosier said:

Best window this far west could be early Friday.  After the band moves back east, not sure how far west we can get it to come later Friday into Saturday.  Fully agree with Izzi's comments about the rates in the afd though, probably because I mentioned something like that yesterday.  

Where do you live exactly?

[Hoosier]

16 minutes ago, Tom said:

Where do you live exactly?

Griffith.  About 4 miles east of the IL/IN border.

[bud2380]

Not much change on the Euro.  The big question will be, is this system more moisture starved like the Euro shows?  Or does it have a little more juice like the Canadian shows?  The GFS just seems out to lunch at this point.