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se WI/ne IL/nw IN/se MI lake effect snow event

Hoosier

By Hoosier,
in Lakes/Ohio Valley

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Hoosier

Hoosier

Posted
Posted

Just taking an early look at this potential event and it appears that some favorable factors may come together. Given that we're still quite a ways out, things can change. From an overall pattern recognition standpoint, it looks like a good setup with a potentially significant low near the east coast during this timeframe. This often induces deep northerly flow around the Lakes which the models are hinting at. A consensus of progged model 850 mb temps would put delta T in the mid-upper teens. 12z GFS forecast soundings indicate rather deep moisture and adequate inversion heights and essentially no directional shear for an extended period.

Way too early to pin down the most favorable spot but I would say that areas especially near the IL shore and possibly down into northwest Indiana should keep an eye on this event. As things stand right now, there could be a 36-48 hour period of favorable parameters targeting the same general area with a potential peak sometime on Christmas day or the 26th. Accumulating snow is looking like a pretty good bet and a very preliminary guess is that several inches could fall somewhere in that corridor.

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A-L-E-K

A-L-E-K

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Posted

Glad you started this, i didn't have the cojones and it's enough of a possiblity that the discussion deserves to be severed from all the talk about who is or who is not on the bus.

Personally I tend to think globals back winds onto the western shore too much at this range but as has been mentioned before, big east coast lows do have at least some track record of bringing LE to Chicagoland. Delta T and moisture profiles do look good. As usual it will probably come down to nailing down the exact trajectory and seeing what kind of convergence materializes.

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Hoosier

Hoosier

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Glad you started this, i didn't have the cojones and it's enough of a possiblity that the discussion deserves to be severed from all the talk about who is or who is not on the bus.

Personally I tend to think globals back winds onto the western shore too much at this range but as has been mentioned before, big east coast lows do have at least some track record of bringing LE to Chicagoland. Delta T and moisture profiles do look good. As usual it will probably come down to nailing down the exact trajectory and seeing what kind of convergence materializes.

Yeah, it could end up being more of an Indiana event and just clipping the IL shore. That is not out of the question but I felt there was enough potential to call it western shore.

I don't see any "extreme" parameters with this one right now, but a long duration of favorable fetch with probably pretty good thermodynamics should be enough.

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Chicago Storm

Chicago Storm

Posted
Posted

Might as well...

FYI...99% of the QPF for the Euro is LE, while the GFS totals are inflated a bit due to some synoptic snow.

MKE:

12z...

ECMWF: 0.08"

GFS: 0.15"

UGN:

12z...

ECMWF: 0.14"

GFS: 0.24"

ORD:

12z...

ECMWF: 0.17"

GFS: 0.27"

GYY:

12z...

ECMWF: 0.15"

GFS: 0.53"

VPZ:

12z...

ECMWF: 0.13"

GFS: 0.68"

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Chicago Storm

Chicago Storm

Posted
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LOT

AS CLOSED UPPER LOW DEEPENS OVER THE ERN GREAT LAKES CHRISTMAS

DAY...LAKE EFFECT SNOW SHOULD BECOME BETTER DEVELOPED. WHAT MAY BE

A SIGNIFICANT LES EVENT APPEARS LIKELY OVER THE UPCOMING WEEKEND.

THE MAIN QUESTION IS WHERE WILL THIS SET UP. RIGHT NOW GFS FAVORS

NWRN INDIANA...WHILE EUROPEAN SUGGESTS NERN IL. FOR NOW WILL GO

GENERALLY WITH A BLEND OF GUIDANCE...PERHAPS SHIFTING THE AREA OF

SNOW SHOWERS WWD INTO NERN IL BY SUNDAY.

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Chicago Storm

Chicago Storm

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MKE

STRONG HIGH PRESSURE SLOWLY BUILDS INTO NORTHERN MINNESOTA FRIDAY

NIGHT THROUGH SUNDAY...WITH AN AMPLIFIED UPPER LEVEL RIDGE OVER

THE NORTHERN PLAINS. 1000/850MB WINDS ARE EXPECTED TO SHIFT NORTH

NORTHEAST AND REMAIN FAIRLY PERSISTENT ACROSS LOCATIONS NEAR THE

LAKE DURING THIS TIME. THE GFS TRIES TO KEEP THESE WINDS DUE NORTH

AT TIMES...BUT FEEL THAT THE WINDS WILL STAY ONSHORE FOR A

MAJORITY OF THIS PERIOD.

SURFACE TO 850MB DELTA T VALUES AROUND 15 DEGREES CELSIUS ARE

EXPECTED AS WELL. MOIST LAYER BELOW INVERSION SHOULD TAP THE -10

DEGREE CELSIUS LAYER...SO SLIGHT CHANCES TO CHANCE POPS FOR LAKE

EFFECT SNOW SHOWERS SEEM PRUDENT. ANY ACCUMULATIONS WOULD BE

LIGHT. TEMPERATURES SHOULD REMAIN NEAR OR JUST BELOW SEASONAL

NORMALS DURING THIS TIME...STAYING MILDER NEAR THE LAKE WITH THE

CLOUDS AND SNOW SHOWERS.

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Hoosier

Hoosier

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Might as well...

FYI...99% of the QPF for the Euro is LE, while the GFS totals are inflated a bit due to some synoptic snow.

MKE:

12z...

ECMWF: 0.08"

GFS: 0.15"

UGN:

12z...

ECMWF: 0.14"

GFS: 0.24"

ORD:

12z...

ECMWF: 0.17"

GFS: 0.27"

GYY:

12z...

ECMWF: 0.15"

GFS: 0.53"

VPZ:

12z...

ECMWF: 0.13"

GFS: 0.68"

That's actually not awful for models that are in no way equipped to handle qpf for LES.

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Chicago Storm

Chicago Storm

Posted
Posted

LOT

AS CLOSED UPPER LOW DEEPENS OVER THE ERN GREAT LAKES CHRISTMAS

DAY...LAKE EFFECT SNOW SHOULD BECOME BETTER DEVELOPED. WHAT MAY BE

A SIGNIFICANT LES EVENT APPEARS LIKELY OVER THE UPCOMING WEEKEND.

THE MAIN QUESTION IS WHERE WILL THIS SET UP. RIGHT NOW GFS FAVORS

NWRN INDIANA...WHILE EUROPEAN SUGGESTS NERN IL. FOR NOW WILL GO

GENERALLY WITH A BLEND OF GUIDANCE...PERHAPS SHIFTING THE AREA OF

SNOW SHOWERS WWD INTO NERN IL BY SUNDAY.

FWIW...18z GFS says NERN IL.

http://www.nco.ncep.noaa.gov/pmb/nwprod/analysis/namer/gfs/18/images/gfs_p60_132s.gif

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Hoosier

Hoosier

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Have been watching this for the past few days and if this can hold off this the 26th I would be able to head out and document this setup if it looks good still since or xmas eve event looks like its not going to happen.

Probably too early to be throwing out amounts but if anything like the GFS verifies in terms of duration, fetch, moisture, delta T, inversion, etc. then I think this could drop amounts well over 6" locally (possibly double that). Really don't have a lot to go on yet though as this is well out of the hi-res guidance range.

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weatherguru

weatherguru

Posted
Posted

Let us know what Skilling thinks about this set up tonight.

No problem.

Wind tragedy does look favorable for a period of time Thursday-Saturday as H pressure system builds in from the N and low pressure system tracks well south and east setting up a nice NNE fetch. Now the 18z GFS would be heaven for extreme NE IL with prolonged periods of LES. This is a pretty rare set-up. Something like this could set up a band of 6+ O'hare eastward. I do think NW IN will get hit pretty hard to but we can say NE IL has a chance to.

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weatherguru

weatherguru

Posted
Posted

Anyone see LOT's latest graphic forecast?

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/wxstory.php?site=lot

After a few quiet weather days with near normal temperatures, a storm system will approach from the Plains Thursday night. Current thinking is that the storm track will be far enough south to spare the area a significant accumulating snow on Friday. However, there still may be some light snow, with the best chance of seeing any accumulation being across far southern portions of the forecast area. Colder air will return for the holiday weekend, and northerly flow of the cold air over the comparitively warmer waters of Lake Michigan will potentially result in the development of accumulating lake effect snows across near lake areas of northeastern Illinois and northwestern Indiana. Stay tuned for updates on your holiday weekend weather forecast.

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A-L-E-K

A-L-E-K

Posted
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I live on Cumberland and Foster if you know where that is. I cant wait to see what Skilling has to say. He seems pretty good at his stuff with LES. He has been mentioning it in his blog the last few days.

My wife grew up right around Pennoyer, so yeah i know where that is.

I'm always guarded with LE chences on this side of the lake, but this one has some potential.

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weatherguru

weatherguru

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My wife grew up right around Pennoyer, so yeah i know where that is.

I'm always guarded with LE chences on this side of the lake, but this one has some potential.

Yep live right across from Pennoyer school/Minute-Men gas station. I went to Pennoyer elementary school.

Anways, yeah even if this storm does miss us to the south we have LES to watch. Now I am pretty confident with system tracking eastward along gulf states and high pressure system building in from the north will have a nice long NNE fetch going down the lake. It is pretty surprising that GFS pretty impressive this far out with .25+ QPF right over ORD or around there. LOT mentioned it in latest graphics about LES potential. Something like this yields LES warnings in Lake, Cook and possible parts of Dupage eastward counties. Looks Ohare may be on western fridge of this. It's still 3-4 days away so we cant get to excited but if this continues into Thursday will need some LES watches soon.

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A-L-E-K

A-L-E-K

Posted
Posted

Yep live right across from Pennoyer school/Minute-Men gas station. I went to Pennoyer elementary school.

Anways, yeah even if this storm does miss us to the south we have LES to watch. Now I am pretty confident with system tracking eastward along gulf states and high pressure system building in from the north will have a nice long NNE fetch going down the lake. It is pretty surprising that GFS pretty impressive this far out with .25+ QPF right over ORD or around there. LOT mentioned it in latest graphics about LES potential. Something like this yields LES warnings in Lake, Cook and possible parts of Dupage eastward counties. Looks Ohare may be on western fridge of this. It's still 3-4 days away so we cant get to excited but if this continues into Thursday will need some LES watches soon.

I don't know about headlines, but the .10-.25 being put out of pure LE by the globals is pretty nice. If the general synoptic setup holds and the hi-res wrfs start showing some nice bands, then it will be the time headlines but i can't recall being under pure LE headlines many times and i can remember them not busting even less.

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Baum

Baum

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I don't know about headlines, but the .10-.25 being put out of pure LE by the globals is pretty nice. If the general synoptic setup holds and the hi-res wrfs start showing some nice bands, then it will be the time headlines but i can't recall being under pure LE headlines many times and i can remember them not busting even less.

this is what we've been reduced to? :weep:

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KeenerWx

KeenerWx

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Probably too early to be throwing out amounts but if anything like the GFS verifies in terms of duration, fetch, moisture, delta T, inversion, etc. then I think this could drop amounts well over 6" locally (possibly double that). Really don't have a lot to go on yet though as this is well out of the hi-res guidance range.

This is very reasonable. I definitely would agree that this thing has potential to be a 6-12" event (even in the early stages of knowing what's going on).

My wife grew up right around Pennoyer, so yeah i know where that is.

I'm always guarded with LE chences on this side of the lake, but this one has some potential.

Being cautious, yet recognizing the potential is the best thing for this time frame. Models usually do not get a good grasp of lake effect until inside of 36 hours of the event. Even then, there's lot's to sort out. Lake effect always excites me, whether it hits my locale or not. Really, anybody from Milwaukee/Chicago to Michigan City is in the game right. Yet, with that said, I hope Chicago gets a little of fun out of this. It's always neat to see the western shore get some love from the lake.

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