AppsRunner

The american CAMs all seemed to be pretty awful this time around. The RGEM and the globals you mentioned were all decent, though I don't think any model came close to showing the extent of the northern push until an hour before it got there.

It's remarkable how far north the northern edge of the snow made it today compared to what guidance had been suggesting. Waterloo is all the way up to 1.5" too. Here in Ames we have roughly 1.75-2.5" depending on where you want to measure. Some main roads are still in rough shape but not bad otherwise. Looks like DSM is sitting around 4" or so. If we can get to 3" I'll be pleased. Much happier than I was checking RadarScope after several drinks last night

At least Des Moines is getting snow :/

FWIW... 00z ARW/NMM are both significantly south of their 12z runs. Almost completely dry for I-80 north

Agreed. At least for the spots that aren't sweating a northern gradient, it seems like most everyone is fairly conservative at the moment. Seems like a widespread 3-6" for IN and most of OH. Central/Southern IL and most of MO are almost guaranteed warning criteria snows. STL the real winners, which you don't get to say often.

The hi res guidance trends won’t help with this statistic

Something around 1-3/2-4 seems most reasonably out here too. We could double our snowfall for the season if the higher end of that range pans out. Seems like this has happened at least a few times this season now... most notably with the late November storm for S/E IA. If we see any hints of a southern trend on the 18z/00z I'd start shifting my bets heavily to the Euro's side, but given the close agreement on basically every other model I'm not sure I'd buy in just yet.

FV-3 for those curious. A little north and a little juicier across most of IL. UKM was pretty close to its 00 solution from what I can tell.

3km NAM also much improved for I-80 through IA/IL/IN with at least some precip up to the WI/MI border. Still not as far north as its 12km companion, but definitely much more in line with most of the models at this point. It will be interesting to see if we continue the northward shift or if we readjust back to the south a bit over the next day or so.

Another rather sizable shift northward in the Euro ensembles with I-80 south all seeing measurable precip. Southern IL to SE IN still with the greatest accumulations. At least some of our members in the Ohio Valley will get their first real snow this year.

How far below average are you guys by now? We're at about 10" below normal IIRC, probably closer to 15-20" by mid January since there appears to be zero appreciable threats over the next two weeks.

Last year I lived in Oswego, NY. We had 93.9" of snow by January 4th. This is getting entertaining at this point.

DSM will almost certainly finish December with 0.7” and 2.2” for the season. It’s not great.

I too am flying to a certain Great Lakes city that afternoon. Perhaps we'll share the same flight? Either way it doesn't look to have a ton of support for any snow chances, but sometime to at least watch. Pattern does get relatively active though no clear snow threats for now.

I drove an Ames to DVN round trip yesterday. It wasn't fun. Although I still think NW Illinois (anything past Joliet on I-80) is my least favorite place to drive. At least most of Iowa has some small hills to look at, IL was just flat.

Part of me wanted the last storm to get a little closer to us just to make the gradient a bit more impressive. I have a week between Dec. 23-28 where I'll be in Syracuse, and it's entirely possible I see more in those 5 days than I do all winter here. Wouldn't be too unmanageable.

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Picked up 1/2” of snow on the tail end of the main band yesterday as we briefly switched to snow. Back to snow overnight and have about an inch to 1.5” today. Nice to see the ground covered for the first time since October

The DSM - Ames snow hole is either going to fill in this weekend or get significantly more LOL-worthy. Fun/complicated upper low setup tomorrow through Sunday. Nice storm for the Midwest even if some of it is rain

Better than having 10 consecutive Euro runs give you a 6-12" only to have the storm slide so far south that you end up with nothing. But couldn't agree more, after spending four years in a lake effect snowbelt this winter is off to a pretty frustrating start.

It's worth noting that not only did Tyndall AFB gust to 130mph, but a couple UF/WeatherFlow stations also recorded winds of that caliber for getting tossed around. The one that hit the eye (after the wind sensor died) recorded an 86/G129. The one station just SE of Mexico beach recorded 96/G126. Not to mention the FSU/Panama City station that hit 100/G116 before it also died (on an offshore wind). Given that there was a recorded 16.5mb pressure difference over 3.7 nmi and multiple datasets of ~920mb pressure, it's laughable that people are even considering this to be Cat1/Cat2. Hopefully the NHC appreciates your email though!

METAR obs. don't show much all the time, especially if it's windy like it is now.

You should be able to get ECMWF 850mb DP's on Plymouth's site as well.