Hoosier

As was mentioned, relatively slow motion/pivoting nature could allow these to hang over a particular area for some time. Will be interesting to see if this is going to rise to the bar of needing a snow squall warning.

Wish it were a bit colder at the surface tomorrow, but I imagine there will be some localized cooling underneath the heavier snow showers.

Even though it won't amount to much, will be kind of cool to watch the snow showers spinning around on radar tomorrow. CAM/hi-res models have a pretty showery look.

Trashy antecedent. Much of the precip later looks to be wasted on rain or inefficient snow in the LOT cwa, except maybe western areas.

Next week or two will be telling to see if this is really the peak and my problem with the other person's post is that it was in the context of frequent downplaying/minimizing, which you have not been doing.

I mean...

We're so close to seeing New Orleans on those maps.

Nationally, we are at our highest average daily number of cases right now. It's almost like Angrysummons lives for being wrong.

That is the worst that map has ever looked. Interesting since our case/hospital metrics are not at their worst.

Northern tier well on track for a warmer than average January. I don't think +15 is getting eradicated.

Yesterday's run made an oopsie. Here is today's 12z, which has heavier totals farther west.

That January 12th sun angle will get you every time.

Here's LOT's take Thursday through Monday... A large upper trough will dig over the central CONUS on Thursday as an upper ridge amplifies over western North America. This upper trough will then develop into a closed upper low late Thursday over the Midwest, then gradually shift eastward across our area on Friday. Overall, this will result in a period of cool and active weather across the region late Thursday through Friday. Precipitation is expected to develop over the area Thursday afternoon. As it onsets, expect it to be in the form of rain, due to initially mild temperatures close to 40 Thursday afternoon. However, this light rain is expected to transition to light snow from west to east through Thursday evening. Some minor snow accumulations will be possible Thursday evening, but amounts look to remain under an inch. As we head into Friday the upper low is expected to shift overhead, and this essentially set up a vertically stacked surface and upper low over the area. Additional periods of snow can be expected over the area on Friday, and it looks to be more showery (convective) in nature. Low-level lapse rates should steepen considerably as a much cooler atmospheric column develops under the upper low overhead. As such, we could see some scattered instances of more vigorous snow shower activity on Friday, which in turn could support additional accumulations. This snow shower activity may persist into Friday night before the the entire weather system shifts to our east into Saturday. For the weekend and into early next week it looks like temperatures will be a bit colder then in recent days following the passage of the late week storm system. While our current blended forecast guidance suggests advertises a generally precipitation free period from this weekend onward, we will have to watch for some additional chances of snow later in the weekend. There is some support in the forecast guidance with another northwestern impulse tracking across the area sometime around Sunday. If trends continue to support this, future forecast updates will need to consider adding in a mention of light snow for the area later in the weekend as this potential system tracks across the area. KJB

The UK strain has been confirmed in Indiana. I think you might as well assume it is in most states in the country at this point. The question is the numbers.

We have technically had a -NAO since late December. Hopefully it doesn't abandon us when we'll need it.

One issue for the LOT cwa is temps at onset. The NAM looks too cold in this setup (with temps AOB freezing for the bulk of the cwa) so precip at onset could either be rain or inefficient accumulating snow. Could get a nice burst of snow then but I am perhaps more interested in what happens when the cold core aloft comes in on Friday, especially with a little diurnal heating. Sometimes that can overperform but on a more localized basis.

The surface/upper low tracks suck for like 90% of the sub. Yeah, it'll snow, but I see little reason for optimism that this will be any kind of meaningful system for most. To channel beavis... it's January, it should be snowing.

You have really become quite insufferable. Nobody is locking anything in, and yes, 00z could look different, but we are waiting for things to get better and now it is sort of coming into range.

Yikes. Hope you start feeling better soon.

Was looking at 1920-21 in Chicago, which is the least snowy winter of all-time with only 9.8". On January 11, 1921, the seasonal total stood at 5.9", which is actually slightly ahead of the current 2020-21 total. December 1920 was the snowiest month that winter, and not like it was a great month of course. There was a remarkable shutdown of snow from January onward. Before I get chided by michsnowfreak lol, I don't actually think this record will be broken, but it is interesting to look back and see just how bad it can be in your core winter months.

It'll get better because it almost has to by default. We can hope it turns out to be really good instead of "better" but no guarantees of that.

So much grass visible. Other lawns do have better coverage of snow. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to it. Some places on this side of the street have more snow and some places across the street also have more.

In order of least snow to most snow through 1/15 (but all less than 6") 2012-13 2001-02 1912-13 1936-37 1889-90 1943-44 1905-06 1999-00 1923-24 1901-02 1982-83 1922-23 1930-31 1888-89 1979-80 1938-39

You're all ready for more Chicago futility info, right? Currently, Chicago has 5.4" of snow so far. May be getting slightly ahead of things, but I'm going to assume that Chicago will still be short of 6" on January 15. Using xmacis and then filling in some data gaps with my other source, it looks like there have been 16 years with less than 6" of snow through 1/15. How did those years turn out? Well, I have bad news. 15 out of the 16 finished with below average snowfall. Some were real clunkers while others rallied to end up not as far below average. The one exception was 1979-80, but even that only finished modestly snowier than average with 42.4". I would imagine the results would look better if the criteria was set at <10" through 1/15, but in any case, it's enough for me to determine that it looks very unlikely that Chicago will end up with above average snowfall when it's all said and done. I'd say the main objectives should be to rally as much as possible and hope for a big storm.

Still relatively far out, but if we can get this kind of look for February, it would imply some things to track. Maybe a little bit of a living dangerously look though, especially the farther southeast you are in the region.