cyclone77

4-5", with isolated 6" was probably the right call for the majority of the DVN cwa. 3-5" was a pretty good forecast, but probably should have went with 3-6, or 4-6". Certainly considerably better than the 6-8" that DVN issued a warning for. I feel warnings and advisories are being issued way too frequently these days.

Last minute shift south is pretty compelling to say the least after the models seemed to stagnate on the same track solution for days. Won't be enough to deliver much snow for the QCA, but it will make what was looking like mostly a rainer into a kitchen sinker.

Nice to see the southward shifts since 18z. Hope u guys get buried. The southward adjustments should keep more of a messy mix around here a few hrs longer than expected. Funny how many of us for days kind of expected southward adjustments and it waited till 18z today to do it lol.

My thoughts from last night are generally the same for the QCA after looking at 12z. Looks like an hour or less period of light freezing rain, perhaps with a few wet flakes changing to all rain by early afternoon. Should stay all liquid till at least midnight when 95% of precip event is over. The northern DVN cwa def has a tougher forecast. Looks like Cedar Rapids to Dubuque could get a nice little snow, but I'd be concerned about WAA tempering amounts some. Could see a messy mix even there. If they can stay all or mostly snow they could pick up several inches.

Yeah the warm/moist advection is very impressive indeed. 925mb southerlies of 40-50ts, with 50-60kts at 850mb. The remaining shallow/surface cold layer should quickly erode by mid afternoon.

The Euro has temps already at or above freezing by midday with precip still off to the west of this area. Temps only increase during the afternoon, so other than a very brief window of potential glazing while temps are in the 33-34 range I think it's a non-event. Looks like a decent little rain event followed by a few flurries later Tuesday night. Snow pack of 8" will absorb the rain, and reduce down to about a 5-6" glacier that will be very resistant to future warm spells. Looks like we're going to have snow cover for the foreseeable future.

It's amazing how much colder it gets out there in the flat open country west of town. Would have loved to have had a thermometer out there during some of those intense arctic outbreaks in the past. Pic from earlier

Car temp read -15 just outside town a little over an hour ago while coming home. A balmy -4 here in comparison.

HRRR has been consistently showing us getting down to -20 to -21 tonight. It's likely overdone as it's known to go overboard a bit with temps over fresh snow cover. The timing of the ridge is nearly ideal though, and skies should remain clear. Looks like -10 to -15 is quite attainable.

We'll see. I def agree there may be additional freezing rain as temps rise above freezing due to the very cold surface, but even with that I believe it should be a pretty short window. Of course it only takes a very short period of glazing to create huge problems on the road. To me the deep southerly flow with rapid WAA screams a very short duration glaze event. Some areas, particularly further west out this way may already be too warm for the brief glazing. The 12z NAM solution is interesting, and to be honest I kind of expected the models to trend in that direction over the past few days. So far the globals, including the mighty Euro refuse to adjust southward, so I'm tossing the NAM solutions at this point.

Lol, I hope not. Looks like several inches at the least. Hopefully several more than that.

New Euro has a nice snow from Waterloo to Madison. Looks like mostly rain a little south of that line. Southerly surface flow out ahead of the system looks to keep any freezing rain a very fleeting event for any given location. Since the system hasn't shown any signs of adjusting southward I'm expecting a primary rain event for here/QC. Possibly a very brief glaze at onset, and a few wet flakes at the tail-end.

Looks like you're gonna get buried. Congrats!

I'd much rather have snow as well, but if it is primarily a rain event it won't be the end of the world to me. We have a good 8" depth out there, and it's quite dense. Any rain will only glacier-ize it and cement it in good before the next arctic intrusion. There's signs we could see some clippers beyond this storm so hopefully they would refresh the snow pack.

This one's looking like a mix-bag for east IA/northern IL. Definitely doesn't look to be an all snow event. If we get some rain/freezing rain it will really act to turn the existing snow pack into a glacier, as it is pretty deep and shouldn't melt much during the event. Our snow pack will start layering up like lasagna, as there's already a thin layer of icy crust about 5" below the surface lol.

4.8". Not for sure but guessing ratios were around 10:1. The snow is light in nature, but it packed in pretty well with all that wind. The granulated nature of the snow, and only around 100mb of DGZ depth likely kept ratios fairly conservative. MLI/DVN ended up with 4.2/5.2" respectively. Amounts around the area were generally in the 4-5" range. The fact that the snow sort of compacted as it fell makes it a good quality snow, as it shouldn't compact and lower the overall snow depth. Was a fun, yet kind of frustrating event to track lol.

4.8" here average. Very nice event.

+SN for the first time of this event. Interestingly the radar returns don't look much different than just a short bit ago when we were at more of a moderate snow.

Rough estimate is 1.5-2" here. Best rates of the event so far with what I'd estimate a bit under a half mile vis atm.

11.3" report from Waukon IA, up in the far northeast corner. They will easily go over a foot there.

Ripping pretty nicely out there. The wind whipping the dry snow around makes it look pretty legit. The granulated nature of the snow will likely keep ratios fairly subdued. Thinking 5-6" here oughta do it.

There used to be someone named Indeeger or something like that from near Independence IIRC. There's several reports of 10-12" in far southeast MN/and far northeast IA. Snow continues to rip there as well. LSRs there are likely very nice.

Yeah I actually feel kind of guilty cashing in on this one. Our luck has certainly changed from that rough stretch from 11/12 to 13/14 when we went 3 winters in a row without a warning criteria snow. I feel for ya man! Here's hoping you guys cash in as we go forward. In regards to this storm I am very happy to see the central Ohio peeps finally cash in on a biggie.

HRRR/RAP have shown 0.6-0.7" of precip from the QC through here the last few runs. If that works out that would be quite the change from most of the week when models continually showed this area in the drier area of precip. We'll see how it shakes out.