Just got back from Key West Road trip. Experienced all kinds of weather from the drive. Spectacular sunsets in the backroads of Georgia. Northern Florida has some tornado damage a day earlier before we were there. Sleet in Northern Kentucky, which changed to snow flurries in most of Ohio yesterday. Going up to Dearborn there was a definite border of snow on I-94. South of it there nothing. Great trip. Congrats to those in the path of this upcoming snowstorm. It felt like it was coming in Kentucky yesterday.

2022-23 train of Colorado lows dropping significant snows all winter was absolutely anomalous. Look at it similar to the sierra-nevada snowfall records of the same year, one should never hope or expect that pattern to setup and persist like it did that year. I would say for any particular location in the northern plains, three colorado lows that end up with >6" snowfall each in Dec-Mar could be expected, some years there are none. How many tracked sw to ne centered from about sioux falls to duluth in 2022-23... 10 or more? When I look back, the snowiest periods for the midwest/plains the majority of the time they end up as a result of N/W flows. Though there seems to be 3 varieties of NW flow for the MW/Plains. One is a bone dry with moisture starved shortwaves moving so fast nothing but LES is produced. Second, is when a train of clippers gets established and a narrow band gets the jackpot of snow, outside that band gets nothing. Think Feb 2021 for some here that were in that jackpot band in Iowa/N IL. Third is one is the NW flow similar to 2013-14 over the northern plains. I don't know how to how to quantify this type but it was full of fast clippers with a variety of tracks. 13-14 had to many to count clippers with small bands of >6" snowfalls, but the 2-3" areas were broad, sometimes hundreds of miles wide. And, of course 13-14 was cold, cold, cold... I would love to read an analysis of what made 13-14 different from other NW flows, I know when I lookup 500mb anomaly maps alone don't explain the difference. For Sioux Falls, look into Jan-Feb 2010. That featured the second type of NW flow that favored the eastern Dakotas and W/SW Minnesota.

Still... a notable cold spell would be -15 or -20 in January.

Wasnt a fan of the 12z NAM run at all. Furthest north snow shield with a warm nose. That is complete opposite of the 06z NAM, at hour 84 the warm nose and snow shield was much further south.

This is the Minneapolis point forecast. A little colder than this. They don’t have much snow cover do they? That makes a big difference. Edit: I looked it up, they have no snow depth. 25/11 is climo. So below average. Also the coldest air is focused further east.