Hoosier

Shoveled the entire 110' long driveway and sidewalk in 45 minutes. Very fluffy and easy to deal with. Some sun is melting the remaining patches on the concrete.

White knuckle but it was certainly memorable. There was a clipper type system in the area that had some lake enhanced snow before that firehose took hold.

Here's a radar loop of a portion of the event https://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/current/mcview.phtml?prod=lotrad&java=script&mode=archive&frames=20&interval=15&year=2005&month=1&day=22&hour=20&minute=0

17 years ago tonight, while I was still living in LAF, I made an impulsive drive north to northwest IN to intercept an intense LES band. It was a Saturday night, just like this year. The band was ripping at about 2-4" per hour. I-80/94 in Lake county was an absolute disaster with several inches of snow on the interstate. Driving conditions were terrible. I had never seen an interstate look like that. There were no plows anywhere that I saw. As I drove throughout Lake county, I encountered a number of stalled out vehicles. Total snow amounts neared 2 feet in the hardest hit area of the county. I didn't stick around long and got back to LAF in the wee hours of the morning.

I haven't looked into the latest runs so this may be wrong, but I sort of wonder if the slightly farther north track allows for a window for the IL shore to get some LES.

If Stebo weren't a met, I'd say he's a weenie trying to will this thing toward Detroit.

Celebrate good times, come on Area Forecast Discussion National Weather Service Chicago/Romeoville, IL 328 PM CST Sat Jan 22 2022 .SHORT TERM... Issued at 327 PM CST Sat Jan 22 2022 Through Sunday... I made a couple of minor changes to the going winter weather headlines, but only for my northwestern IN counties and Kankakee county in IL. The main change was to add Lake and Porter IN to the advisory through 15z Sunday. However, the winter storm watch continues here from 15 to 21z Sunday for both the lingering impacts from tonight 3 to 5 inch snow, and the likelihood for accumulating lake effect snow during the day Sunday. I also opted to push off the start time of the advisory for my northwestern IN counties and Kankakee counties to 11pm tonight. Not much has changed with the previous thinking for a period of moderate to briefly heavy snow rates up to an inch per hour across a good portion of northern IL into the northwestern IN tonight. The main culprit for this is the mid level impulse, and its associated surface low over the Dakotas early this afternoon. As this disturbance races southeastward towards our area this evening snow is expected to develop from northwest to southeast across a good portion of northern IL and northwestern IN as the top-down saturation occurs quickly within a zone of increasing warm air advection. Expect the snow to onset in the 8 to 9 pm timeframe this evening across the Rockford region, then by around 10 pm in and around much of the Chicago metro area, and around, or shortly, after midnight into northwestern IN. Highest snow rates (up to 1"per hour) are expected in the 11 pm through 4am period in IL and the 2am to 6am period in northwestern IN, and will largely be driven by a strengthening lower level frontogenetic circulation along the north-northeastern periphery of the surface low. The combination of the strongly forced ascent and a favorably deep dendritic growth zone will support a efficiently high ratio (up to 20:1) type snow. Therefore, fluffy snow amounts of 3 to 5 inches look likely in the band of snow that looks to run right across northern IL into northwestern IN. Lighter snow amounts of an inch or two are expected across my far southern counties outside the current advisory. The snow is expected to tapper off from northwest to southeast early Sunday morning. This will end the threat for accumulating snow for most areas by, or shortly after, daybreak Sunday morning. The main exception to this will be across parts of northwestern IN, where signs continue to point at lake effect snow continuing through much of the day, possibly heavy at times. Since confidence is high in 3 to 5 inch snow amounts across Porter and Lake IN, we have opted to include them in the winter weather advisory into early Sunday morning. However, with the concern for a potentially more organized lake effect snow continuing during the day, we have left the earlier issued winter storm watch in place directly following the 15z end time of the winter weather advisory. The main concern is that the combination of 3 to 5 inches of snow tonight, with at least some localized areas of heavier lake effect snow on Sunday, could push total amounts into the 5 to 9 inch range. This could thus result in dangerous travel conditions, especially along the I-80, 90 and 94 corridors in Lake and Porter IN. Since confidence on the exact location of the potentially most organized band of snow on Sunday remains somewhat unclear, we will hold off on issuing a warning at this time. The lake effect snow threat will wane by early Sunday evening as the winds over the lake back to a westerly direction. KJB

LOT has an advisory for Lake/Porter but still kept the Winter Storm Watch, so appears that confidence in warning amounts is not sufficient.

Just to elaborate a bit on the lake effect potential... here's an unmodified NAM fcst sounding over southern Lake Michigan at 15z Sun. Inversion heights are around 800 mb... not great but could be worse. Because lake temps have cooled significantly lately, delta T is "only" in the mid to perhaps upper teens. Omega is sort of split with some in the dgz and some not, but should still result in pretty good flake size. Should get a nice lake response that is perhaps capable of inch per hour rates or maybe slightly higher at peak. The question is how progressive it will be and whether it can hang up somewhere for more than a few hours.

18z HRRR through 00z Mon

Too bad lake temps have plummeted. Otherwise, likely would've been entertaining the possibility of a foot somewhere in Lake/Porter.

I will bear the burden.

In all seriousness this is looking decent around here. Look to be in a good spot for the synoptic system and then could have some lake contribution. I'm thinking high end advisory amounts are a pretty good bet.

35% chance that ORD finds a way to not be at 10" after this.

The seasonal total of 6.6" at ORD through 1/20 is the 3rd lowest in the past 30 years, only ahead of 2012-13 (1.3" then... yikes) and 2001-02 (4.7")

Great disco RC. Signals have been there for a while.

We're so desperate.

Really need to get to February, although I think it may be playing with fire with southeastward extent in the sub. Higher risk higher reward type of pattern.

That's a pretty wound up storm on the 18z GFS for the far eastern sub on the last weekend of January.

I have noticed that as well. And I'm not a huge fan of using the word "active" just because there may be multiple chances of small amounts of precip over a period of time. It can snow 3 times and add up to 4 inches (or even less) or it can snow 3 times and add up to 20 inches.

ORD has officially fallen behind where things stood last winter. Through 1/17/2021, ORD had 6.8". Through 1/17/2022, ORD has 6.6".

Just putting this out there now. I get all the February threads.

Yeah I knew he was having issues. Really hope he is ok.

Does anybody know Jackstraw off of the board, like on social media? He hasn't been on here since late June, which is concerning. Terrible start to winter in the area, but still.