TheClimateChanger

Not in our area, but the NWS in Charleston has upgraded some of its southeast Ohio counties to an Ice Storm Warning. Now talking about potential for widespread power outages and up to 3/4" of ice accumulation. URGENT - WINTER WEATHER MESSAGE National Weather Service Charleston WV 1102 AM EST Thu Feb 3 2022 KYZ101-102-OHZ067-075-083-084-040015- /O.UPG.KRLX.WS.W.0004.000000T0000Z-220204T1200Z/ /O.NEW.KRLX.IS.W.0001.220203T1602Z-220204T1200Z/ Greenup-Carter-Morgan-Athens-Jackson OH-Vinton- Including the cities of Flatwoods, Raceland, Russell, Grayson, Olive Hill, Carter Caves State Park, Grayson Lake State Park, McConnelsville, Stockport, Athens, Jackson, Wellston, Oak Hill, McArthur, and Hamden 1102 AM EST Thu Feb 3 2022 ...ICE STORM WARNING IN EFFECT UNTIL 7 AM EST FRIDAY... * WHAT...Significant icing. Snow accumulations of up to 3 inches and ice accumulations of three tenths to three quarters of an inch. * WHERE...Portions of southeast Ohio and northeast Kentucky. * WHEN...Until 7 AM EST Friday. * IMPACTS...Expect widespread power outages and tree damage due to the ice. Travel could be impossible. The hazardous conditions could impact the morning or evening commute. PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS... Travel is strongly discouraged. If you must travel, keep an extra flashlight, food and water in your vehicle in case of an emergency. Prepare for possible power outages. Additional information can be found at https://www.weather.gov/rlx as well as on our Facebook and Twitter pages. && $$

Seeing a bit more ice accrual now, especially on the bird feeder. Rhododendrons have icicles hanging from the leaves.

Same as the other report from Beaver County. Sidewalk and driveway are just wet, but there is a very light glaze now accreting on elevated surfaces (tree branches, pine needles, etc.). I think our typical freezing rain setup is coming out of a deep freeze, where the rain arrives prior to temperatures warming above freezing. In this case, temperatures were in the 40s yesterday so road surfaces seem to be above freezing still. Probably would take a few more hours of below freezing temperatures to get any icing on paved surfaces.

This would be a historic storm in northeast Ohio. Wow.

The 11.9 on 1/16-17 was the biggest storm since December 2010 at YNG airport. Still hasn't been a foot storm there since then. I don't know what was going on in December 2010 but they were reporting crazy, inflated snow totals. I don't recall any storms between 1993 and 2009 that would have reached 16" when I lived there. A foot was generally the top.

HRRR getting up into rarified territory for northeast Ohio. Nearly 16 inches at Canton, Akron and Youngstown. 17 inches in Cleveland. If that happens, would be the largest snowstorm in a long, long time for some areas.

HRRR is getting up into crazy territory in northeast Ohio. When was the last time Canton and Youngstown had 16 inches or more? March '93 Superstorm?

I'm old enough to remember when some of the models were depicting that razor thin dropoff over Lake Erie (Canadian, ahem).

Looks like they are fine tuning some details. The warning still says 1-3 inches for entire PIT metro, but the zone area forecast for Butler shows 4-6 now, Beaver 3-5 & Allegheny 1-2.

Seems much colder than progged. The weather channel app insists it is 43 (45 when I was out earlier), but my car thermometer was reading 34-36 in some of the deeper, wooded and snow covered valleys and hollows and 39-41 on the hills. I would watch out for some icing in spots even tonight.

18Z HRRR would be a beast of a storm. Suspect these numbers are overdone.

Yes. On the plus side, at least it's kind of a marginal warning. Doesn't look like they expect widespread 0.25"+ ice accretion given the range (0.1-0.3"), so there might be some isolated power issues but it doesn't look it's going to be a massive ice storm. Let's hope the NWS forecasts pans out, and some of the higher modeled totals do not occur.

Curious as to what the NWS does as far as advisories and warnings. NWS CLE went with an advisory in its far SE counties, but the current forecasts call for around a quarter of inch or more of ice in parts of PBZ's warning area. Could see the advisory get sandwiched in between warnings, perhaps PBZ ends up going with an advisory in its northernmost east Ohio counties to kind of line up with that and then warnings further south where the more substantial ice is expected. It looks probable that everywhere not in the watch will get a WWA for the possibility of a glaze to a tenth of an inch of icing. The current watch area is the wildcard. Probably warning level on snowfall for I-80 area, and for icing in parts of East Ohio, the West Virginia panhandle and possibly parts of SW PA. May be a zone of advisories in between where neither snow, nor ice would warrant a warning?

Holy cow. And that's only until the morning of the 15th!

Modeled snow depth at hour 300: Parts of SW Ohio buried under 40" of snow. Yeah, I'm thinking that's not going to be happening.

Yeah, doesn't look like the snowfall map is particularly accurate for the RAP at 10:1. Kuchera is somewhat better. Changeover to all snow in Pittsburgh occurs around 0z Friday (Thursday evening) on that run and the 10:1 map already has 5.6 inches accumulated at that time. In reality, taking the simulated radar literally, would be like 0.5-1" of mostly sleet (probably mixed with some wet snow). But even so it does show nearly 7" of snow thereafter.

Not sure if the RAP is tracking the same storm as the other models, or if a weenie took over the controls?

Is the RAP even tracking the same storm as the other models?

Gotta love the RAP.

Not bad. Full run says a foot at 10:1 ratio.

Note that neither of these maps would include any accumulated sleet that occurs. Also, they are Kuchera maps but they are almost identical (or even lower) for our region than the 10:1 maps, since the Kuchera ratio for this event would generally be around 10:1 due to the warm nose aloft.