Hoosier

I would even say that I don't know why there won't be snow accumulation well inland from the lake. This setup has a lot going for it and is favorable for heavy precip extending well inland, some of which will intersect with the colder bl temps. Gino brought up what happened in Buffalo in 2006, but an example closer to home is October 7-8, 2000. This airmass seems a little warmer aloft than that one, but that may be countered by it being a week and a half later in the month with somewhat cooler water temps now... in other words, perhaps the airmass doesn't have to be as cold. That one produced a localized 6" in Peotone, IL with amounts trending down as you got closer to the lake. Could this be like an eastward displaced version of that?

Still a good amount of uncertainty, but I actually am warming up to this type of scenario happening somewhere. It may be farther east in the IWX cwa though.

The 1993 one was on the 30th. Interestingly, 1925 happened on 3 days that were spaced apart (0.5" on 10/22, 0.6" on 10/28 and 0.3" on 10/30). That means that it was a pattern that was favorable for snow and not just a fluke one-off.

As far as snow chances, not saying there will be no negative marine influence for South Bend, but I would think they are far enough inland to not get completely skunked like the areas near the IN/southwest MI shore probably will. So I dug into October snowfall climo for SBN. There have been exactly 2 years that produced an inch or more of snow on October 18 or earlier -- 1.5" on 10/18/1972 and an incredible 13.0" on 10/10-11/1906, which appears to have been a lake effect event (in case anyone is wondering, the storm in 1989 happened just after the 18th). I found an alleged 1.0" snowfall in September 1994, but this appears to me to be erroneous as the lowest temp that day was 41. Maybe it was hail or something? Anyway, this was disregarded. So, if they can somehow manage to get an inch, it would be pretty significant. Really anything measurable at all would be noteworthy for this part of October.

Off the top of my head, I know that some November snows have led to pretty good winters in the area. You may be onto something with respect to October snows, but then we're probably getting into sample size issues and whether it's correlation vs some kind of causation.

What time is it? Clown map time 15z RAP has a similar theme btw. Even an inch or two on the grass would be pretty noteworthy given it's mid-October.

Certainly looks like a chance for Chicago to see its first flakes (the other locations mentioned are pretty much a given). And interestingly, considering the early time of year, areas closer to the lake in IL look more favored than farther west given the proximity to the trough and offshore winds means that the marine warmth won't be a factor.

Yeah I was reading about that. Pretty impressive.

At least we have Indian summer to look forward to in about a week.

First things first, next weekend is looking quite mild. Beyond that, we'll see if we can pull off an unseasonably early synoptic snowfall somewhere in the region.

Extremely dry airmass today with widespread RH values in the mid-upper teens south of I-80.

A 2 emoji summary of the 00z GFS for Oct 27-28:

Temp is tanking here... already down to 34.

4 tornadoes in Wisconsin yesterday -- all EF-0 https://www.weather.gov/mkx/October12SevereStormsSoutheastWisconsin

You don't say

The entire LOT area is under a Freeze Warning except for central Cook county. Alek living the charmed life.

Yeah I'd be shocked if he didn't.

MKX has confirmed 1 tornado so far... around West Allis.

I think we will definitely see snow in the sub early next week, and outside of the UP/northern tier.

Granted we don't know how many confirmed tornadoes there will be, but I wonder when the last time was that there were this many tornado reports that occurred in an area that didn't even have a marginal risk area. And it's not like there was a marginal risk nearby -- the nearest marginal risk area wasn't even close. That being said, I'm with Chi Storm in not being too critical of SPC's outlooks for this one. I went back and looked at the progged parameters/overall setup, and it would've been difficult to see this coming. Yes, there was a little bit of CAPE that was progged, but it was quite confined from a spatial and temporal aspect. Indeed, this whole thing was over with in SE WI in about 60-90 minutes.

I had looked at the 12z outlook and saw the general thunder area. You just assume that nothing too exciting will happen on a day like that, but as today has demonstrated, you get a big surprise sometimes.

Can we get that thing in the Ohio Valley to trend north?

Overnight/tomorrow morning will be a veritable torch compared to what we've had lately.

Funny thing about that one is that while the amount of snow was nice, the thing I think of right away is the immediate plunge into bitter cold at the tail end of the storm and after, which resulted in the roads being absolute trash even days after the storm ended.

I hope we do it one day. 30 must have a different feel than 20.