December 2020 Observations and Discussion

[gimmesnow]

11 minutes ago, Tom said:

I still think there are more surprises ahead with the models.  I will say, however, it is looking better for us farther south esp  if the blocking keeps trending stronger.

I hope this keeps up. With the little base we have, more than .3in of rain in the 40s will probably close it down. At least temps look really good mon and tues night to blow snow. I can't believe it'll be middle of December, I'll have only gone snowboarding a handful of times, and the future doesn't look good. This is the worst opening to Winter I think I've had here in a while. At least GFS is showing lows in the teens Monday night, they can really open the guns up then and make some serious snow. It starts at under 28 wet bulb temp but they can only really run the snowguns at 50% power or so. In the 10s they can blast them and make a ton of snow very quickly. And the end result is very nice.

[bud2380]

1 minute ago, james1976 said:

Canadian is much more SE from previous run though.

Yes, you are correct.  Quite a jump southeast with snow anyways.  Weaker too.  

[bud2380]

GFS with another system in the day 9-10 time frame.  I hope this active weather continues throughout the month.  

[james1976]

5 minutes ago, bud2380 said:

GFS with another system in the day 9-10 time frame.  I hope this active weather continues throughout the month.  

Yup I think that's been showing up for the last few runs now.

[Tom]

8 minutes ago, gimmesnow said:

I hope this keeps up. With the little base we have, more than .3in of rain in the 40s will probably close it down. At least temps look really good mon and tues night to blow snow. I can't believe it'll be middle of December, I'll have only gone snowboarding a handful of times, and the future doesn't look good. This is the worst opening to Winter I think I've had here in a while. At least GFS is showing lows in the teens Monday night, they can really open the guns up then and make some serious snow. It starts at under 28 wet bulb temp but they can only really run the snowguns at 50% power or so. In the 10s they can blast them and make a ton of snow very quickly. And the end result is very nice.

I wouldn’t throw in the towel just yet for this month.  I think there will be opportunities for the ski resorts up north and in Wisco.  I’m really curious to see the Euro weeklies later today.

[Clinton]

CMC is starting to hold the main energy back but is still stronger with the first piece.  SE trend continues

 

[bud2380]

UKIE looks more like the Canadian than the GFS

 

[mlgamer]

16 minutes ago, Clinton said:

CMC is starting to hold the main energy back but is still stronger with the first piece.  SE trend continues

I think the CMC generally has the right idea on this...which sadly is not a good solution for me.

[Clinton]

2 minutes ago, mlgamer said:

I think the CMC generally has the right idea on this...which sadly is not a good solution for me.

Yeah that wouldn't be good for me either that's too far south it could end up that way but I don't think it's going to get suppressed quite that far or maybe that's just wishful thinking on my part

[MIKEKC]

If the potential storm this weekend is a repeat of the Oct. 26th storm, that would put our cycle at 47ish days, right?  This has been suggested on here several times. If true, what happened to the storm on Oct. 22nd here in KC followed by well below average temps. 47 days ago we recorded .71 inches of rain here in KC with well below average temps for that day and 7 days to follow. The current forecast in KC is for no storms(until the repeating 26th of OCT. storm this weekend) and well above average temps this week. If you were using the LRC, would you have forecast no storm and well above average temps based off what happened 47 days ago? I would have not...

If we are forecasting into the future using a 47 day cycle, we would have called for a potential storm around Dec. 7th and for temps to average well below. The total opposite is happening, no storm and well above average temps. How is that a cycling pattern? How can we use the past to predict the future if the example I show based on the 47 day idea has busted this week?

Do we have the wrong cycle length? Maybe we are still trying to figure that out?You can't have some parts match and some parts not match and then claim the LRC told us this when they do match.

[Hawkeye]

12z UK snow

[Clinton]

12z GFS mean and ensembles.  

[bud2380]

Canadian has 3 systems in total, each dropping snow to various parts of the region.

 

[bud2380]

Through 96 hours the 12z Euro is about the same as the 00z.  Looks weak and progressive. 

[bud2380]

Some changes thru 114 hours.  SLP is much further south and there is some energy left in the Rockies that seems like it wants to merge up a little with the lead low.  We'll see if this is the start of something or not.

 

[james1976]

Looks like the ICON

[Hawkeye]

Euro is sheared out, but tries to bring some backside energy through and develop some kind of modest system.  The upper flow is messy, so this will continue to change.

[bud2380]

Starts to crank up by hour 132.  Similar to 00z run, but quite a bit further south.  It's a start.  

 

[Madtown]

just junk...some day we will get a wrapped up storm...maybe 2025?

[bud2380]

Hopefully this increases 2 or 3 fold in a couple more runs.  

 

[bud2380]

No major cold behind the system either, so these paltry snow amounts wouldn't last until Christmas.  

[Minny_Weather]

Down to nearly zero flakes on GFS and Euro.

[james1976]

Well......I guess we have something to track. Lol

[bud2380]

If models hold by tomorrow we should start a thread for this storm. It seems likely to happen. Details are of course still to be ironed out. 

[gabel23]

OAX first take. 

[St Paul Storm]

12 minutes ago, gabel23 said:

OAX first take. 

In the ‘What is Uncertain’ section it should just say ‘everything’. 

[CentralNebWeather]

29 minutes ago, gabel23 said:

OAX first take. 

The old covering all your "tracks" forecast.  

[snowstorm83]

Just now, CentralNebWeather said:

The old covering all your "tracks" forecast.  

Classic Day 4-5 OAX winter map lmao 

[bud2380]

Euro also showing a system in the day 8-9 time frame.  

 

[Stacsh]

Just checking in.  Still no cold air to play with?   Ok I'll come back in a week.  

[snowstorm83]

EPS mean is a step towards the GFS. It'll be interesting to see if the trend continues at 00z. Wouldn't be surprised if it's a random tease. 

[Tom]

12z EPS...looks like we will have our next winter storm to track...and there will be another one following this...

 

 

[bud2380]

NAM getting so close...

 

[james1976]

18z GFS similar track to 12z but not as much snow.

[bud2380]

18z GFS was way way weaker than the 12z run

 

[bud2380]

DVN  has a pretty decent read today on the storm.

 

Looking towards the late week/weekend system. The GFS seems to be
the most unstable solution, regardless of this it appears that most
of the are stays in the warm sector of the next system and thus the
chance for rain.  Ensemble guidance, depicts this as well as the
majority of snow is north of the CWA.  GEFS postage stamps show only
a couple solutions with snow more than one inch for the system. That
said, the ECM is slower and thus the cold air is able to move into
the area by the time the second wave moves into the area.  This
scenario would lead to better chances of snow for the area.
Confidence is still low and any talk of amount or impacts seems too
soon in this iteration.  The NBM ensemble guidance has actually come
down in the 13z run than yesterday locally and now suggests maybe an
inch or two with the system.  If we see models latching on to the
ecm then we will need to change messaging to a potential moderate
impact event for this weekend.

[james1976]

Potential record highs Wed in Central Iowa with lower 60s possible. 

[Minny_Weather]

Garbage.

[CentralNebWeather]

Been at my son’s freshman basketball game and I see the boards look quiet. 18z models don’t look great around here. 

[jaster220]

Went to Detroit burbs today and was totally surprised to see an area of decent snow drifts just one county east. Guess that's how close the misses have gotten now, lol.

Not sure what to make of this next system. On one hand it's cool to see my office talking about it as if it were a legit risk, but we've been here not that long ago with the storm that slid east just enough in the end that "talk" was all we got from it.

Quote

-- Weekend system still expected...but details not clear yet --

We are still expecting a system to affect the area in the Friday
through Sunday time frame. There are multiple upper troughs and
cut off lows that come together in some fashion to bring the low
to the lakes this weekend. The first trough is currently in the
middle of the Pacific with a cut off low dropping south near
Southern California. The waves come together over the plains on
Friday with a low moving through the Great Lakes in the Saturday
time frame. At this point, looking at the operational models, the
Canadian is furthest northwest moving a low through Wisconsin. The
GFS is more of a middle of the road track, moving the low through
the GRR forecast area. The ECMWF is further southeast, tracking
the low through Southeast Lower Michigan. 12z European ensemble
low locations Saturday evening are starting to zero in on the
southern Great Lakes area for the track of the low, so leaning
towards a GFS or ECMWF solution.

What this means is we are looking at a potentially impactful
system this weekend with a rain to snow type of scenario. Wind is
also in play depending on the depth of the low. Way too early to
nail down any details at this point with this system, but we are
certainly watching it. It appears we are looking at a period of
lake effect snow as well on the backside, Sunday into Monday.
More to come this week as details emerge.

&&

I will say, something is pressing/filtering colder air into the region. There were NO below freezing days in my grid-cast, let alone highs in the 20's.