Hoosier

lol I hear ya. As others have alluded to, models are having some fits with the handling of the surface low and just where the low really starts to deepen explosively. This is going to have ramifications for areas near the fringes of the bigger snows.

It's nice

I'll post more thoughts soon but needless to say, this setup is a pretty sensitive one for Chicagoland and relatively small tweaks could make for a notably more impressive outcome in the area.

Let it be an omen.

Helps to have such high rates. It doesn't have to spend a lot of total time in a particular area to start talking 2 feet.

Severe threat with the system at the end of the month? Moisture/instability are the usual concerns at this time of year with northward extent.

No kidding. The model handling of this one has not been stellar to say the least.

This is part of a project that I had started working on years ago but then abandoned. Anyway, I thought I would share some info about this particular occurrence because as far as I can tell, it is one of the top lake effect snow events to occur off of southern Lake Michigan. As the thread title says, it happened back in mid February 1958. The synoptic pattern was not an unfamiliar one for significant lake effect snow events off of southern Lake Michigan, featuring a low pressure system moving up the east coast with high pressure attempting to move into the area. This set up a long northerly to north-northwesterly low level fetch with some duration. I will post a series of surface/500 mb maps and 850 mb temperature/wind vector maps covering the period from Feb 15-18. Obviously it's a bit of a guessing game on what the thermodynamics were like over the lake, but we can figure that there may have been at least some ice coverage due to it being mid-February and it not being an unusually warm winter up to that point. Assuming water temperatures in the low 30s Fahrenheit, which are common values over southern Lake Michigan at that time of year, it would have resulted in lake-850 mb temp differentials peaking in the mid 20s C. Based on how the maps below look, it's likely that the band(s) of snow would have been wiggling around some, preventing even larger amounts, but obviously still impressive. According to CDNS, which was the forerunner publication to Storm Data, snowfall amounts of 40" were estimated around Michigan City, IN. Although measuring may not have been the easiest (as suggested by how high the drifts got), this estimate seems quite believable as La Porte, IN recorded 33" of snow on just under 3" of precip between the 15th-18th, and they are located a good 15 miles inland. The setup was starting to break down later on the 18th with rapidly warming 850 mb temps over Lake Michigan: Here's a map of snowfall amounts during the period. It is underdoing total amounts in the band (probably due to the localized nature), but it gives a general idea of where it occurred. Just add on some. If anyone has anything else to share about this event, please do.

Call it "the Alek"

Screw zone imby

I mean, I get his point. Hasn't been completely dry but there hasn't been that much snow either outside of the lake belts. Not that we should have a bunch of plowable synoptic snowfalls by this time.

Looking forward to the warmup.

All since 1995 lol

A 959 mb low up Boston's fanny with barely any snow to speak of. Some relatively small tweaks to this setup could make it snowier but overall, it's a marginal/thread the needle kind of thing and even if it ends up working out for somebody, it may be outside our area.

You realize you're twitter famous now, right? Just don't get a big head and leave us.

Big bertha is back on the GFS... sort of. Bombs like crazy out east. Odds of that system being a good snow maker in the sub probably aren't terribly high, but you never know. It's why we watch.

Looks very believable based on radar appearance.

Climatologically, you could argue that what's happening in your area is as uncommon as what happened around Buffalo. But at the end of the day, it's a numbers game. People are going to be more impressed by 60, 70, 80 inches of snow, especially a casual outside observer.

Would be nice to break this mark with a synoptic storm later this winter.

Feels kinda brutal out there, especially when the wind picks up. Seems more like January 19 than November 19.

It's more like a "nothinger" on the 12z GFS.

That is one wacky ending to tonight's 00z GFS. There's a noreaster type system with snow on the east coast, with a hurricane getting picked up/kicked out to sea (yes, in December) by the trough associated with the east coast system.

I'd really start believing in a continuation of my luck from last winter if this pans out

Haha that's just awesome

You would be having the most epic Jebwalk of your life if you were there.