Hoosier

Obviously there are a lot of ways to look at mild weather/thaws, but it would be interesting to run a trend analysis on the number of days with 40+ degree highs and 50+ degree highs in DJF. I kind of suspect there would be more of an increase in December and not so much in January/February, but I'm just guessing.

I disagree with this a little bit. Whether you meant to or not, your post is implying that we ought to expect consistent winter conditions over 3-4 months. It's just not the case where most of us live, and it really has never been. There's almost always thaws in winter, and sometimes they have been pretty prolonged in distant years past. We can argue whether the thaws have become more intense/longer lasting over time.

Oh hi RP

Part of the "problem" with biasing so much snow to February in recent years is that the tendency will be for faster melting compared to if that snow happened earlier in the season. Good luck holding onto snowcover for a month or two at our latitude if you're starting it in February. Usually not going to happen.

Hans Gruber > Gruber Law

I get all my weather from the Gruber Law Offices.

That's no way to talk about the snow spitter sliding south.

Feel like this is one of those times when the CPC maps can be misleading. It's not an inferno regime, but it is pretty high confidence for modestly to moderately warmer than average.

LOT rated it EF-1

Yesterday's tornado near Gibson City was only the 3rd one recorded in the LOT cwa in January (since 1950) https://www.weather.gov/lot/2023jan03

Will be curious to get Chi Storm's thoughts in more detail, but to me the pattern looks serviceable as we head to mid-month, especially for areas north of I-80. Don't really need a cold pattern to get snow at this time of year. Something relatively seasonable is good enough.

How about the weekend?

Was thinking how it was only a week and a half ago that we were talking about blizzard-like conditions and freezing our asses off. The zzzz periods do suck when they are prolonged, but we can do some pretty wild swings in the Midwest.

You can put it on the board.... yes. Without double checking, I'd be pretty confident about this being the earliest day in the calendar year for a tornado in the LOT cwa. PRELIMINARY LOCAL STORM REPORT NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE CHICAGO IL 924 PM CST TUE JAN 3 2023 ..TIME... ...EVENT... ...CITY LOCATION... ...LAT.LON... ..DATE... ....MAG.... ..COUNTY LOCATION..ST.. ...SOURCE.... ..REMARKS.. 0559 PM TORNADO 3 SSE GIBSON CITY 40.43N 88.35W 01/03/2023 FORD IL EMERGENCY MNGR PHOTO SHARED VIA LOCAL BROADCAST MEDIA SHOWS A TORNADO SOUTHEAST OF GIBSON CITY. FORD COUNTY EM CONFIRMS TWO HOMESTEADS SOUTHEAST OF GIBSON CITY SUSTAINED DAMAGE FROM THIS TORNADO. POWER LINES WERE ALSO DOWNED IN THE AREA. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION WILL BE MADE AVAILABLE AT SOME POINT TOMORROW.

Pretty good lightning. Kind of a mini-train setting up around here.

I better see "thread the needle" used at least once.

Cell has developed northeast of Kankakee. Also new tornado warning in central IL.

I think my backyard is in the cool sector and front yard in the warm sector. That's how close the front is.

Quite the mesohigh.

Where da front?

In JB we trust! Personally I'm going with a blend of 1977-78 and 2013-14 the rest of the way.

Marginal risk was expanded into parts of central IL/IN. Could argue for it being even further north imo.

I think we'll sneak into the warm air here tomorrow, but wouldn't quite call it a slam dunk. Mentioned this in the January thread but the surface low being out west in Iowa during the day tomorrow and gradually weakening (or at least not strengthening) spells trouble for blasting the warm front way far north. It may not get much north of us.

LOT is semi-interested per the afd. Suggested that the SPC outlook may need to be expanded if trends continue.

I didn't realize the Buffalo pack got nuked so quickly, but yeah, only 2" depth as of today.