2/1 - 2/3 MW/Lower Lakes Major Winter Storm (GHD-3)

[bud2380]

Personally I’m focusing on the GFS, Euro and their ensembles right now. The other models I just am not putting much stock in. The Ukie has been terrible this year from what I’ve observed. The Canadian is rarely the most accurate at this time frame. The Euro has a lot of shifting to do to end up near the GFS solution. Let’s see if it trends that way this morning or not. 
 

 

[Stacsh]

5 minutes ago, bud2380 said:

Personally I’m focusing on the GFS, Euro and their ensembles right now. The other models I just am not putting much stock in. The Ukie has been terrible this year from what I’ve observed. The Canadian is rarely the most accurate at this time frame. The Euro has a lot of shifting to do to end up near the GFS solution. Let’s see if it trends that way this morning or not. 
 

 

What concerns me is the gfs is outlier and blew the east coast storm 2 days out.  But it also had the storm first originally.  So you never know.   I posted it in the January thread and it turned out to happen.  GFS was on it first then failed the closer it got.  

[buzzman289]

Let's get closer to the Show before we start waving the white flag, shall we

 

[CentralNebWeather]

15 minutes ago, bud2380 said:

I find it odd that the GEFS is even further north than the GFS operational model. This gives me some hope that it’s somewhat correct. But if the Euro doesn’t move in this direction shortly then I’ll have a hard time believing that this ends up that far north. 

Had to drive to a basketball tournament 2 hours from home. Just checking the models and I about fell over. Have to hope they come back north. 

[Sciascia]

41 minutes ago, Tom said:

Boom!  Almost 60% of the members are showing a stronger wave cutting up to the lower lakes...10" snow mean for ORD

 

Just imagine if Ensemble 10 were even close to verifying. Over 2 and a half feet of snow would shut down Chicago.

[gimmesnow]

7 minutes ago, CentralNebWeather said:

Had to drive to a basketball tournament 2 hours from home. Just checking the models and I about fell over. Have to hope they come back north. 

I hope it comes north too. I will be very happy if I wake up Thursday and there's 8 niches of snow on the ground, and it's 7 degrees outside so all the non-hardcore people are afraid of the cold and stay away from the ski hill.

[Sciascia]

Here’s a GIF of the GEFS ensembles from 6pm Tuesday to 12am Friday. Always kinda neat to see all the different scenarios.

[The Snowman]

Place your bets, 12z ECMWF running.

[centralweather44]

4 minutes ago, The Snowman said:

Place your bets, 12z ECMWF running.

Seems like it drifts north for noon run and south for midnight run. That being said I have a feeling it’s sticking south this run. 

[bud2380]

Euro holds. Terrible for iowa. 

[Hawkeye]

Models are now trying to shove the bigger, final piece of energy all the way down to Texas.

[OmahaSnowFan]

Onto February for Nebraska folks. I drove up to Sioux Falls SD yesterday and it was crazy to see ZERO snow on the ground for the majority of the trip. There’s still piles and some snow in the ditches near Omaha and then up by SF, but in between nothing.

[Stacsh]

1 minute ago, Hawkeye said:

Like some other models, the Euro is now showing the bigger final piece of energy getting shoved all the way down to Texas.

Might not be a bad thing.  That last piece always drifts NW as the event gets closer.  Good to see both gfs and euro agree on it being stronger.  

[CentralNebWeather]

At a basketball game. Decided to check the Euro. Immediately logged off the run. Ugly for many on here. Trying to remain optimistic. 

[Stacsh]

24 minutes ago, someweatherdude said:

Euro and Canadian look eerily similar, and make me nervous that KC could actually get missed to the south. 

Canadian is always south.  I think it had the east coast blizzard missing the coast as late as Thursday night.  

[GDR]

Tom better get his magnet out that dang euro keeps wanting to push south

[Tom]

12z EPS...

 

 

[Tom]

12z GEPS...

 

[james1976]

@OKwx2k4might score with this one

[CentralNebWeather]

1 minute ago, james1976 said:

@OKwx2k4might score with this one

Or Brownsville at this rate. 

[bud2380]

I’m at a ski resort in Detroit Lakes MN and snow has started falling here out of almost nowhere. Very picturesque scene developing. 

[OKwx2k4]

54 minutes ago, james1976 said:

@OKwx2k4might score with this one

 

52 minutes ago, CentralNebWeather said:

Or Brownsville at this rate. 

So you're sayin there's a chance...

[bud2380]

DVN AFD mentions Euro ensembles hinting at a potential further north track. They still aren’t biting on one solution or the other yet (GFS vs. Euro). So stay tuned. 

[centralweather44]

3 minutes ago, bud2380 said:

DVN AFD mentions Euro ensembles hinting at a potential further north track. They still aren’t biting on one solution or the other yet (GFS vs. Euro). So stay tuned. 

One can hope. It’s never good to be in bullseye this far out and we still have 90-100 hours before this event even starts 

[bud2380]

NAM just barely coming into range. Appears to be in the south camp. 

[Jaycee]

We got about 5-6” from LES in the city so I’m super excited for this to add to our close to 12” depth — though I wouldn’t be surprised if it went south and was one of those Indianapolis 6-8” hitters. Hope I’m wrong though! 

[CentralNebWeather]

11 minutes ago, bud2380 said:

NAM just barely coming into range. Appears to be in the south camp. 

Very far south. 

[GDR]

Holy smokes south

[Jaycee]

Eeep ‍

[East Dubzz]

I wouldn’t get too worked up about the NAM this far out.

[Clinton]

EAX latest forecast

With respect to our mid-week weather system, the upper wave remains
well offshore, so moderate uncertainty remains to the forecast
specifics. Instead, what we do know is the probability remains that
late Tuesday night into Thursday morning may feature a period of
accumulating snowfall across much of the forecast area, including
amounts that may impact travel. The overall trends in model guidance
have been to shift the highest band of snowfall slightly southward,
more across the EAX CWA. However, significant differences exist
between solutions, including the overall track of the ejecting wave,
it`s intensity, and duration of precipitation. All of these
variables will play a critical role in shaping exactly how our
winter weather event will evolve. Lastly, confidence is also
increasing that a period of bitterly cold air will settle into the
region, and with anticipated snow cover, could see a multi-day
period of well-below normal low temperatures late in the work week
through the weekend.

[bud2380]

Gfs going south 

[Stacsh]

Yeah.  This looks like and Indiana, extreme southern Michigan and Ohio special.   I’m out.  

[FV-Mike]

LOT with a ton of info. Currently leaning towards the Euro but says all 3 scenarios are possible. 

 

Here`s a breakdown of 3 general clusters of outcomes, in which the
12z global operational models fit decently into:

1) Weaker and farther north Hudson Bay PV will allow for slightly
more pronounced eastern height rises, which enables strong
moisture surge Tuesday evening and night to reach farther north
into the CWA for potentially significant snow accums into Wed eve.
The short-wave out over the eastern Pacific is slower to eject
and positively tilted and subsequent stronger synoptic system
later Wednesday night into Thursday takes off too far south and
east for meaningful additional snow (aside from any lake effect
chances).

Similar 12z model run: ECMWF

2) Weaker and farther north Hudson Bay PV, more pronounced
downstream ridging allows for moderate to heavy overrunning snow.
THEN southwest short-wave takes on neutral to negative tilt and
ejects out to favorably develop a stronger system with ~1005 mb
surface low tracking near or north of Ohio River. This progression
would bring another round of moderate to heavy snow along with
even stronger winds into or through Thursday, aided by impressive
right entrance region jet dynamics. In most amplified ensemble
members, could even be some wintry mix p-type issues in parts of
the area.

Similar 12z model run: GFS

3) Stronger and farther south Hudson Bay PV lobe results in
confluence and slightly suppressed positive height anomalies, and
the strong/drying influence of incoming Arctic high to have more
influence. Result would be banded overrunning precip having a very
sharp northern cut off and focus the heaviest precip and snow axis
into our southern CWA and points south and east (or even south of
CWA altogether in most northern stream dominant ensemble members).

Similar 12z model run: Canadian.

Suffice to say that all three of these outcomes remain plausible
and represented by the distribution of ensemble members of the
three parent models. Overall, there is *currently* a slight lean
in the ensemble means toward roughly outcome 1, favoring our
southeast half or third, occurring amidst brisk northerly winds.
For this reason, the most recent WPC Day 5 accumulating snow/sleet
outlook appears reasonable with southeast half having higher
(50-70% probabilities) vs. northwest (30-50% probabilities). Since
the three approximate clusters described above remain plausible
outcomes, we continue to urge caution with any individual model
run snowfall outputs being shared. Stay tuned for updates as the
potential event draws closer when we can be more confident on some
of these still uncertain details.

[Clinton]

18z GFS hitting KC hard again

[BrianJK]

Suppressed to the south is the trend.  Cant discount that and can’t just use “trend is our friend” only when it’s positive.   Can that change over the weekend, sure.  But need to be realistic as well.  

[Clinton]

Not sure what the record 48hr snowfall for KC is but this has to be close.

[Clinton]

7 minutes ago, someweatherdude said:

Definitely getting nervous that this is going to wind up south of KC. Nothing is set in stone, but even on the GFS, KC is now starting to push to the north side of the heaviest snow.  There's quite a bit of unanimity of a southward trend even too far south for me.  But the positive, for now at least, is that KC looks to be getting in on some sort of action almost regardless.  Fingers crossed. 

I don't wanna get your hopes up and then it fall apart but D**n you gotta like where we are sitting right now.  I feel like it will creep back north some tomorrow, that's been the trend this year and I'd rather be on the northern edge of the heavy snow vs the southern edge.  Fingers crossed is right though.

[bud2380]

This run of the GFS is depressing. So close but so far. 

[bud2380]

GEFS still further north than the Op model.