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1/23 - 1/26 Two Wave Major Winter Storm


Tom

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1 hour ago, Grizzcoat said:

i think this is what the short range and NAM are seeing for moving the precip back S- DRY AIR- dewpoints around 0  that will eventually be advected in--- I see not much - if any- extension of current headlines in IA. image.thumb.png.cfa4fb2f8f0de95a6328ed479aa64a05.png

Large expansion of warnings to the North were just posted.

 

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Not one mention of snowfall amounts in DVNs AFD. Pathetic. My point forecast is 5-11”. They aren’t even trying to refine the forecast.  Regardless. One trend i notice on the HRRR and NAMs is the much slower onset than the GFS. Snow wouldn’t start in CR until almost 6pm per the NAM. GFS already has a couple inches down by then. I’d prefer to see snow during daylight hours today so hopefully it moves in quicker than those models are showing. 

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35 minutes ago, bud2380 said:

Not one mention of snowfall amounts in DVNs AFD. Pathetic. My point forecast is 5-11”. They aren’t even trying to refine the forecast.  Regardless. One trend i notice on the HRRR and NAMs is the much slower onset than the GFS. Snow wouldn’t start in CR until almost 6pm per the NAM. GFS already has a couple inches down by then. I’d prefer to see snow during daylight hours today so hopefully it moves in quicker than those models are showing. 

Yes, I was hoping it would snow by 3pm, but it's looking more like a nighttime event :( .  I'm going with a 5-8" range for me.  I just can't count on a good ratio when there is wind.  The locals all have Cedar Rapids in the 8-12" range.  I certainly don't see us reaching the high end of that.

season snowfall: 34.8"

'22-23: 30.2"      '21-22: 27.1"      '20-21: 52.5"      '19-20: 36.2"      '18-19: 50.2"      '17-18: 39.5"

Average snowfall: ~30"

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DVN updated their snow map. Now shows 6-9” for Iowa City. And 6-10” for CR. Looking over the Euro it only shows qpf of around a 1/4” per 6 hour period. That isn’t heavy enough rates to produce big time snows over here. I think there’s a chance snow totals end up on the lesser side of 6-10”. But we’ll see. Either way we’re getting a major storm and I’m excited to watch it snow. 

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Quite the write up from Des Moines. Gotta love the word "crippling" 

MAJOR WINTER STORM TODAY THROUGH TONIGHT WITH WIDESPREAD
SIGNIFICANT IMPACTS...

All eyes are on the very heavy and potentially crippling snow
storm set to affect the area today through tonight. Between the
very heavy snowfall amounts forecast and the gusty winds on top of
it, warning criteria are a slam dunk across at least the southern
half of Iowa. The questions now are just how much snow will fall,
just how bad will the impacts be, when will impacts begin and how
long will the snow persist, and where will the northern edge of
heavy snowfall set up. On the latter point, the entire NWP model
suite has been trending steadily northward with that edge for the
last 24-36 hours, and it now appears likely that heavy snow will
fall all the way up to near the Highway 20 corridor, with lighter
amounts to the north. Thus the winter storm warning has been
significantly expanded northward to the Highway 20 corridor, with
an advisory now in effect north of that up to about Highway 18 or
so. Have also delayed the onset time of the warning just a few
hours as the snow will initially be light and fighting dry air
entrainment from the north, and have segmented the warning for
later onset times near the I-80 and Hwy 30/20 corridors.

Once the snow begins to fall in earnest it will accumulate
heavily and rapidly, combining with the winds to produce very low
visibilities and quickly deteriorating travel conditions. As the
snow accumulates on roadways travel will likely become very
difficult to nearly impossible in the swath of Iowa experiencing
the highest accumulations, which are likely to exceed a foot in
some locations. However, it is noteworthy that many of the higher
resolution CAMs along with the operational NAM are actually moving
the entire heavy snow swath northward with time, so that not only
does it impact more of northern Iowa than previously anticipated,
but according to these solutions the snow actually tapers off in
southern and even central Iowa by late this evening. In other
words, the storm total accumulations have been expanded/increased
northward, but there is a potential that the accumulations in the
south may be overdone, if indeed the heavy snow band moves
completely north of that area earlier. Nevertheless, even a
reduction from, say, 9 or 10 inches to more like 6 or 7 would only
slightly moderate impacts, especially with so much of that snow
falling rapidly and likely during the afternoon commute times to
boot, along with winds blowing the snow over roads even after
accumulation rates let up.

As far as timing, while the onset time of accumulating snowfall
moving from SSW to NNE has slowed just a bit, the duration of
snowfall has extended on the back end through tonight, albeit at
slower rates of accumulation after roughly midnight. Have
increased POPs overnight into Tuesday morning rather significantly
to account for this, though additional accumulations are much
lighter by that time. Still, travel impacts will linger beyond the
precipitation as it will take some time for plows to clear so much
snow off the roads, especially outside the primary travel
arteries.
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4 hours ago, Tom said:

Hmmm, this has perked my interest...as we get closer in time, it appears the LES potential on the backside of the storm looking better.  The NAM fam try to keep a lake plume (convergence) into NE IL for hours on end...that would be a fantastic development if true.

Some hefty localized totals for NE IL...

 

I sure hope so. The last 6” storm at O’Hare was over two years ago, and the last 10” storm was way back in 2015.

i think I hit 6 in one storm last year where I am but Chicago saw only half of that.

It was tough to explain to my buddy in Texas last night that no, we do not really see big snowstorms in Chicago “all the time”.

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35 minutes ago, brianc400 said:

I sure hope so. The last 6” storm at O’Hare was over two years ago, and the last 10” storm was way back in 2015.

i think I hit 6 in one storm last year where I am but Chicago saw only half of that.

It was tough to explain to my buddy in Texas last night that no, we do not really see big snowstorms in Chicago “all the time”.

I really think ORD will score a 6"+ storm out of this in a 24-hour period....the LES signal post storm looking better each run.  In fact, the long range HRRR is painting quite a bit of qpf.  It's prob over done but the idea is there that a potential lake plume or multiple bands set up Tue pm into Wed.

qpf_acc.us_mw.png

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