cyclone77

Pretty impressive temp drop-off from Chicago to areas outside of the big city. Midway currently a balmy 27 while it's already down to 1 above at Aurora.

Seasonal snowfall accumulation to date.

Can envision the models over-amping this storm out in this time frame. Wouldn't be surprised to see the storm a little weaker/further southeast as time goes on.

Still a ways away, but it looks like it should be mostly snow for a good chunk of the DVN cwa. Looks like a quick mover, so amounts may be a little tempered. Looks like 2-4" potential for the QCA if we can keep it all snow. If we can get it to slow down a bit maybe it would be more of a 3-5" type event. All in all nothing too exciting, but could act to stat pad the already very impressive season.

Dayum, very impressive. Glad to see you guys, and the central Iowa peeps score a nice one. Picked up another 0.2" to bring us up to 5.2" for the event here. MLI/DVN reported 5.2"/5.1" respectively. This brings MLI up to 57.6" for the season, which is only 12.1" away from the all-time snowiest season set back in '74-'75. They already smashed the previous all-time coldest temp on record with the -33 from Jan 31st, so if they can top it off with the all-time snowiest season this could go down as the most historic winter in their recorded history.

5" on the nose here. Still snowing lightly. Today's snow bumps us up to a bit over 50" for the season.

Up to 3.8" here as of 6pm. Snow is starting to pick back up in intensity, as an area of enhancement is moving in again. Should be enough to get us over the 4" mark. As others have noted, the snow is light and fluffy. Des Moines officially with 9.1" storm total.

Nice to hear. Still pretty light out this way, but the main area of enhancement has yet to arrive. Up to 3.2" as of around 3pm.

Had about 3" of ancient crust that dates back to Jan 12.

Very nice! Some nice enhancement from your area towards the nose of Iowa on radar atm. How much do you have on the ground total now? Just started to snow again after a break.

The enhanced banding did work to be sure. Dropped over 1.5" in about an hour. Up to 3.1" as of 10:30am. 2nd dry slot moving in, but should fill back in by early afternoon for perhaps another inch or so.

Easily the best rates of the season right now. Absolute pound town out there underneath this enhanced banding. Wasn't expecting anything like this with this system, so a nice surprise.

1.4" so far here. Snow has started to fall again after a break in the action. HRRR/RAP/NAM3 show another 0.20-0.25" of precip on the way, so another 2-3" looks likely.

Not really too much to add, as things pretty much look on track for a 4-5" type event for the QCA. One difference showing up in the past few model cycles is we're slowing down the onset a bit. Precip lasts longer into tomorrow night though.

Things are looking on track for a nice advisory event for many of us. Forecast soundings from the 3km NAM show the DGZ deepening as Sunday afternoon goes on over Iowa/northern IL, so hopefully we can keep lift going as long as possible to take advantage of that. 4"+ looks like a good possibility for a good chunk of the DVN cwa. One thing's for sure, it's nice not to have to worry about p-type, or potential ultra-sharp gradients with this one.

Impressive warm up today. MLI made it to 50. It's not much, but the slightly higher sun angle does seem to make a difference when you're out in on a day like today. Felt great. Temps have crashed over 30 degrees since though lol.

It looks like it could be a fairly long-duration event. To me those always seem like they have a chance to over-perform.

^ That's a constructive post. Thanks for the contribution. 06z GFS improved quite a bit compared to the 00z, and drops 0.3-0.5" of precip over parts of Iowa into northwest IL/southern WI. DVN mentioned LSRs north of 15:1, so whatever falls should fluff up nicely. Obviously at this point Iowa looks like it has the best shot at the most precip, but hopefully it's a case where the models are weakening the system a bit too quick for areas further east. Still some time to see how this evolves.

Unfortunately all of the 00z guidance took a step back with this system. Hopefully things trend back in the other direction with tomorrow's runs.

The GFS and Euro have been showing this wave for several runs now. It doesn't look like some of the potent/dynamic systems we've seen as of late, but it looks like it could lay down several inches of fresh powder from Iowa points east. Still 90+hrs out, so let's see what kind of shenanigans the models pull with this one lol.

Went back and reviewed my forecasts since I apparently low-balled everything this winter. Nov 9th storm- Received 1.0". Forecast 1", with perhaps 2" under the better bands on Nov 8th. Yep, I low-balled that one. Nov 25th storm- Received 12.8". Forecast 10-12" Nov 24th, then upped to 12-14" Nov 25. Yep, I really low-balled that one. Jan 18-19th storm- Received 4.8". Forecast 3-5" Jan 17th. Another low-baller. Jan 27-28 storm- Received 3.3". Forecast 3-5" on Jan 26th. Really low-balled that one. Feb 11-12 storm- Received 0.8". Forecast 0.5-1.5". Low-ball. I did an absolute horrible job with the Jan 22-23 storm though. That one steadily shifted southeast in the final 48hrs and we went from what was looking like a mostly rain event, to a nice 6" event. I was def too pessimistic to the end on that one. Another one that haunts me some is the Jan 18-19th event, that one had a sharp cutoff modeled just north of us for days. We've seen some pretty sharp northern cutoffs the past few years so I was a bit pessimistic with that forecast. That one did a pretty nice shift north in the final 24hrs that put the QCA into a much wetter system than what was shown for the days before. In the end the northern cutoff was a lot less sharp as well, and areas up along the highway corridor picked up some snow. We've had a lot of things shift in our favor in the final 24-48hrs this season, which can definitely make a forecaster look like an ***hole. I admit I can be a bit pessimistic at times, probably in some way trying not to jinx the storm lol, but to say I low-ball everything is simply not accurate.

Pardon the intrusion.

Still a ways to go this winter but there's no way this won't be an A+. That's saying something considering the 5 week stretch in Dec to early Jan with 0.3" of snow.

Yeah it's been pretty wicked out there. Some chunks of ice keep breaking off the back trees and hitting the western windows. Sounds like someone throwing rocks at the house lol.

Thanks for the lesson teacher.