January 5th/6th Potential Clipper

[Money]

Looks real strong

 

Not sure how many times we have to explain this...

 

The wx bell map assumes 10:1 ratio. This storm will easily be 20:1 ratio snowfall. So you can pretty much double what the amounts those maps are saying. 

[Scott26]

We should probably not post any Weatherbell snow maps with this one to avoid any confusion.

[james1976]

DMX is saying GFS is way overdone with qpf amounts for this sytem and leaning towards the Euro. I have zero faith in models after the last couple runs totally changing for this weekend's storm. 

[Money]

12z NAM is showing a healthy wave at HR 84 with 4 inch snow amounts in 3 hours in E SD/W. Minnesota. 

[Money]

6z Parallel GFS:

 

http://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis/models/gfsp/2015010206/gfsp_mslp_pcpn_frzn_us_16.png

 

http://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis/models/gfsp/2015010206/gfsp_mslp_pcpn_frzn_us_17.png

 

http://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis/models/gfsp/2015010206/gfsp_asnow_us_20.png

[Money]

MKE saying disregard the 0z GFS and snow amounts will be "less than 6 inches"

 

.LONG TERM...

SUNDAY NIGHT THROUGH FRIDAY... FORECAST CONFIDENCE MEDIUM.

ARCTIC AIR WILL SETTLE OVER THE UPPER MIDWEST FOR THE WHOLE WEEK.
MIN TEMPS WELL BELOW ZERO... MAX TEMPS IN THE SINGLE DIGITS ABOVE
ZERO... AND BRISK WESTERLY WINDS WILL ASSURE WIND CHILL ADVISORY
HEADLINES FOR SOUTHERN WI.

A CLIPPER SYSTEM IS EXPECTED TO TRACK THROUGH MN AND WI MON-TUE. THE
00Z GFS CAME IN 12 HOURS QUICKER AND STRONGER THAN THE PREVIOUS RUN
AND THE 00Z ECMWF. DISREGARDED THIS OUTLIER SOLUTION. THIS SHOULD BE
A MONDAY NIGHT TO TUE EVENT WITH ACCUMULATING SNOW OF LESS THAN 6
INCHES. MODELS WILL NEED TO COME INTO BETTER AGREEMENT... BUT THIS
MAY END UP BEING ANOTHER ADVISORY EVENT DEPENDING ON SNOW AMOUNTS.

[WildWisconsinWeather]

MKE saying disregard the 0z GFS and snow amounts will be "less than 6 inches"

 

.LONG TERM...

 

SUNDAY NIGHT THROUGH FRIDAY... FORECAST CONFIDENCE MEDIUM.

 

ARCTIC AIR WILL SETTLE OVER THE UPPER MIDWEST FOR THE WHOLE WEEK.

MIN TEMPS WELL BELOW ZERO... MAX TEMPS IN THE SINGLE DIGITS ABOVE

ZERO... AND BRISK WESTERLY WINDS WILL ASSURE WIND CHILL ADVISORY

HEADLINES FOR SOUTHERN WI.

 

A CLIPPER SYSTEM IS EXPECTED TO TRACK THROUGH MN AND WI MON-TUE. THE

00Z GFS CAME IN 12 HOURS QUICKER AND STRONGER THAN THE PREVIOUS RUN

AND THE 00Z ECMWF. DISREGARDED THIS OUTLIER SOLUTION. THIS SHOULD BE

A MONDAY NIGHT TO TUE EVENT WITH ACCUMULATING SNOW OF LESS THAN 6

INCHES. MODELS WILL NEED TO COME INTO BETTER AGREEMENT... BUT THIS

MAY END UP BEING ANOTHER ADVISORY EVENT DEPENDING ON SNOW AMOUNTS.

 

I think that's at least partially due to being cautious, MKX loves to make quantitative calls well ahead when they should just use terms like 'several inches possible'.

[GDR]

Yeah local met says models are way overdoing it on amounts.

[Money]

Euro seems north/stronger with the clipper compared to earlier runs.

[Tom]

12z GFS Par...use your own conversions to depict snowfall....I'd say 20:1 is a good bet...

[Tom]

12z Euro...

 

 

[james1976]

Euro will likely be correct. GFS's are over doing it.

[GDR]

[Tom]

18z NAM...

[Iowawx]

Hoping this clipper can stay south, and not trend north. As it is, I will be lucky to see 2 inches tomorrow night. Should the cold keep it south?

[james1976]

NAM and Euro are north. GFS' s south. Not that anything can be trusted. Look what just happened for the weekend storm

[FV-Mike]

LOT's Disco on the event

 

NEXT SYSTEM QUICKLY MOVES SOUTHEAST ACROSS THE PLAINS MONDAY
ARRIVING MONDAY NIGHT WITH CONTINUED GOOD AGREEMENT/CONSENSUS
AMONG PREVIOUS RUNS AND DIFFERENT MODELS. CURRENT TRACK OF THE
SURFACE LOW FROM NORTHERN IA TO NORTHERN IL WOULD FAVOR THE
HIGHEST SNOWFALL AMOUNTS ACROSS NORTHERN IL INTO SOUTHERN WI AND
BAND OF HEAVIEST SNOW WILL LIKELY BE FAIRLY NARROW.

SO WHILE
CONFIDENCE IS INCREASING FOR AN ACCUMULATING SNOWFALL...SOME
UNCERTAINTY REMAINS DEPENDING ON THE TRACK OF THE LOW. FORECAST
SOUNDINGS CONTINUE TO SUPPORT A GROWTH ZONE OF AT LEAST 100MB
AND POSSIBLY AS DEEP AS 200MB WITH AN EFFICIENT SNOWFALL EXPECTED
WITH A CONSISTENT QPF FORECAST OF TWO TO THREE TENTHS. WHILE IT
IS TOO EARLY FOR SPECIFIC AMOUNTS OR STORM TOTALS...SEVERAL
INCHES OF SNOW IS POSSIBLE.
 

[Tom]

18z GFS...

[Tom]

18z GFS PAR...

[Scott26]

150105/2100Z  87  27008KT   6.3F          0:1| 0.0|| 0.00|| 0.00|| 0.000    0:1|  0.0|| 0.00|| 0.00|| 0.00    0|  0|  0150106/0000Z  90  22007KT   7.8F          0:1| 0.0|| 0.00|| 0.00|| 0.000    0:1|  0.0|| 0.00|| 0.00|| 0.00    0|  0|  0150106/0300Z  93  19012KT  11.2F  SNOW   16:1| 0.1|| 0.00|| 0.00|| 0.007   16:1|  0.1|| 0.00|| 0.00|| 0.01  100|  0|  0150106/0600Z  96  19012KT  13.5F  SNOW   17:1| 3.5|| 0.00|| 0.00|| 0.202   17:1|  3.6|| 0.00|| 0.00|| 0.21  100|  0|  0----------------------------------------------+----++-----+-------------++--------------++-------------++-----------+---+---150106/0900Z  99  18015KT  17.1F  SNOW   14:1| 1.8|| 0.00|| 0.00|| 0.135   16:1|  5.4|| 0.00|| 0.00|| 0.34  100|  0|  0150106/1200Z 102  22011KT  20.9F  SNOW   25:1| 0.7|| 0.00|| 0.00|| 0.026   16:1|  6.1|| 0.00|| 0.00|| 0.37  100|  0|  0150106/1500Z 105  32014KT  21.3F  SNOW   23:1| 0.6|| 0.00|| 0.00|| 0.026   17:1|  6.6|| 0.00|| 0.00|| 0.40  100|  0|  0

18Z GFS Bufkit is showing 6.6 inches at ORD with 0.4 QPF. Ratios get as high as 25:1.

[Yerf]

Looks further south than what LOT described

[Tom]

Looks further south than what LOT described

Indeed, and what we have learned from the past is that arctic air likes to push things south.

[james1976]

GFS starting to lose some of those higher lollipop totals that were showing on yesterday's runs. Hopefully that doesnt become a trend. Would be great to see a widespread 6"+ system.

[East Dubzz]

Doubt we see widespread 6" with a clipper. I'm down for a solid 2-4" event, though.

[Madtown]

2" of fluff that is all folks.

[Thundersnow12]

GFS starting to lose some of those higher lollipop totals that were showing on yesterday's runs. Hopefully that doesnt become a trend. Would be great to see a widespread 6"+ system.

 

It wont. The combination of strong WAA, fronto banding, and an extremely deep DGZ all lead to the threat of warning criteria amounts

[Scott26]

It wont. The combination of strong WAA, fronto banding, and an extremely deep DGZ all lead to the threat of warning criteria amounts

I agree completely, this looks to be a really nice set up.

[The Snowman]

I agree completely, this looks to be a really nice set up.

The question then becomes, where will it track? Model guidance doing nothing to help.

[Tom]

00z NAM...

[Scott26]

The question then becomes, where will it track? Model guidance doing nothing to help.

We look to be in a pretty good spot snowman. There is a bit of model discrepancy, but generally the track is fairly similar between the Euro, GFS, PGFS and even the NAM. The NAM and Euro are a tinge north of the GFS and PGFS, but not by much. It's going to take a huge shift for us to somehow miss out completely.

[The Snowman]

We look to be in a pretty good spot snowman. There is a bit of model discrepancy, but generally the track is fairly similar between the Euro, GFS, PGFS and even the NAM. The NAM and Euro are a tinge north of the GFS and PGFS, but not by much. It's going to take a huge shift for us to somehow miss out completely.

Yeah, consistency of the GFS is nice, good to have the GFS-Parallel jumping on board. I don't like the differences between the ECMWF and NAM, but the fact that they're showing the storm in the first place is a plus.

 

Added bonus is the NAM favoring heavy snow into the LOT CWA, somewhat in line with the GFS idea.

[Thundersnow12]

The question then becomes, where will it track? Model guidance doing nothing to help.

 

Nothing? Dude we're 84hrs out. What do you expect? Every model to be locked in? It's fast moving, open wave along a baroclinic zone that right now is currently not getting sampled south of Alaska over the nrn pac. Given those factors and what the models are currently showing, I'd say there is a decent consensus right now

[The Snowman]

Nothing? Dude we're 84hrs out. What do you expect? Every model to be locked in? It's fast moving, open wave along a baroclinic zone that right now is currently not getting sampled south of Alaska over the nrn pac. Given those factors and what the models are currently showing, I'd say there is a decent consensus right now

That's not what I'm getting at. Broad picture, yes, there's certainly a consensus of a potent clipper moving into the Midwest and on eastward. That's well agreed upon.

 

Maybe saying models were doing nothing to help was a bit excessive. But we've got noticeable differences between global models and ensembles. When you add in that this could be a high-impact event (not to mention the first storm threat of the season), you're bound to expect model guidance to get a grip, sooner rather than later. The concern deepens when the GFS, with its 7-run-streak of a N.IL/E.IA bullseye, dropped south tonight and broke the streak. These are the "little things" that quickly blow up in these high-impact events.

 

Perhaps this is why staring at models can get really old, really fast.

[Seahawkfan]

What i love about this snowstorm Monday into Tuesday how cold it will be Wednesday Temps may struggle to get to Zero where i'm at.

[Seahawkfan]

Add in Windchill were talking 30-40 below zero 

[Thundersnow12]

That's not what I'm getting at. Broad picture, yes, there's certainly a consensus of a potent clipper moving into the Midwest and on eastward. That's well agreed upon.

 

Maybe saying models were doing nothing to help was a bit excessive. But we've got noticeable differences between global models and ensembles. When you add in that this could be a high-impact event (not to mention the first storm threat of the season), you're bound to expect model guidance to get a grip, sooner rather than later. The concern deepens when the GFS, with its 7-run-streak of a N.IL/E.IA bullseye, dropped south tonight and broke the streak. These are the "little things" that quickly blow up in these high-impact events.

 

Perhaps this is why staring at models can get really old, really fast.

 

It was run set of runs..it will change. 

 

Also, if you live by the models, you'll die by the models when you talk about "staring at the models". Actually forecast. The model is just spitting out stuff. This is what in short, separates TV mets from the NWS pros. TV mets look at exactly model output and take it to the bank and usually die by it since there is never going to be a perfect prog. NWS mets actually forecast. They are take what is given to them by the models and then use their own knowledge and continue on. I'd bet there probably isn't a TV met out there besides a select few that could actually write an NWS AFD. 

[Geos]

Dropped south a little. Rather be on the northern side then on the southern side of this system. Those southern cut offs on Clippers are usually pretty sharp.

 

[Tom]

Does the arctic push south begin????  Saw it way to many times last year...I still think IA/S WI/N IL are in a good spot.  Your going to see oscillations back and forth run to run.  No biggie.

[Maxim]

Doubt we see widespread 6" with a clipper. I'm down for a solid 2-4" event, though.

[Tom]

00z Euro took a jog south from its 12z run...