cyclone77

I can tell this one's gonna be hard to measure. Snow is blowing around quite a bit out there already. Flake size is a step above pixie dust, but it's efficiently accumulating. Looks like around a half inch or so.

Yeah it just started here as well. Feels like we've been tracking this thing forever lol. Nice to see it is finally here.

Des Moines ASOS down to 1/8 mile. Very impressive. Seeing several reports of a foot or more from southwest MN and southeast SD. Madison SD with 14". Looks like 6-8" so far along the MN/IA border with snow still ongoing.

Geez, if that's correct my forecast would definitely bust lol. Think the kuchera ratios are too high though based on the forecast soundings. Would still be 7-8" for the QCA.

The new snows in southern IA starting to do work. Lamoni is down to 1/2 mile.

Their point about the "teflon" snow is a good one. That will definitely aid in the blowing snow out in the open country.

Precip starting to break out in northwest MO. South-central IA should be rocking nicely in the next few hours.

It did that a few days ago further west out this way. Kind of get the feeling it's sort of kicking the can down the road so to speak. Hopefully today's Euro is on to something and blows up something nice for the east sub.

Looking at HRRR/3km NAM soundings are showing around 100mb of DGZ depth for east Iowa and west IL around 04z tonight. That's not particularly deep. Not sure why local offices are forecasting up to 18:1 LSRs. Even in the northern DVN cwa the DGZ is still only around 100mb. There is decent lift in that zone, but not sure that is deep enough to make a substantial difference. This could be a situation where outside of the enhanced bands the LSRs are pretty paltry, but underneath the LSRs could be substantially better.

Very nice! You look good for 6+" tonight. The area west of you between Albia and Osceola could very well exceed 8". For this area I'm going to narrow my 3-5" call to 4-5". Going with 12:1 LSR with around 0.35-0.40" precip. Out on the northwest side of QC I'd go with 5-6", with 4-5" for IL side of the QC. Hawkeye looks good for 6-7". LSRs may be a bit higher there, so I could easily see more than 7" there.

That fronto band is cranking pretty nicely this morning. Numerous reports of 1/4 mile vis from northern IA back into South Dakota. 1/8 mile in Forest City IA atm.

Looks like there could be an area of 7-10" in south-central IA from near Osceola to a little west of Ottumwa. That area is having a hell of a winter, as they cashed in with some of the heaviest amounts from both the Nov 25th and last weekend's storm.

Still liking 6-7" from around Lamoni IA up through Cedar Rapids and up to Dubuque. As expected the models shifted the heavier northeast/southwest oriented axis of heaviest snow northwestward to match more of what last night's Euro showed. 3-5" still looks good for here/QC.

Oic. If that's the case I'd def be in favor of it to help keep the site humming along.

I voted to not split the threads, but obviously there must be a reason why some would prefer it. Since I've been a member here splitting the storm threads was pretty common, but I never really knew why and kind of went along with it. What is the reasoning behind it?

Pretty solid forecast there IMO. The LE aspect is def a wildcard for the whole shoreline from Chicago into northwest IN. Some areas could definitely score a huge total if they can get in under the main band for any length of time. Pretty much impossible to tell if and where that would happen from this far out. Who knows, maybe Griffin will be ground zero for that. It's definitely possible.

The northeast/southwest oriented precip max shown on the NAMs will likely adjust northwest towards where the Euro shows it IMO on the next few runs. I feel the NAMs are a bit too far southeast with that northeast/southwest oriented precip max.

New Euro looks pretty good for the Cedar Rapids/Dubuque crew. 0.5" precip for those areas, which should fluff up to 6-7". 0.35-0.40" for the QCA/here, which would fluff up to 4-5". Gonna ride my call of 3-5" for here/QC. 6-7" for the CR crew.

Yeah RC brought that up earlier today I believe. Something to watch.

This storm has produced some of the more bizarre precip maps I can remember seeing.

It's pretty amusing bouncing around all the different model QPF output and seeing how different they are from each other. Some have precip maxes here, others have some there. It's pretty funny actually. Maybe things will become more clear in the next few days...oh wait, it's <24hrs away?

Looks like tonight's runs have trended towards the general idea the Euro has been showing for the past few days. Now watch the Euro come in all jacked up lol.

Tough forecast for this area. It looks like the initial front band will miss just north, which takes 0.2-0.3" of precip potential away. The heavier precip with the deform snows will slide well south. Looks like we'll be in the middle with sort of a 3-5" type of an event. Looks like a solid advisory event, and a nice refresher.

How ironic would that be after days of being shown in the lull zone? The GFS and now the RGEM still show the area of lower totals from east Iowa through parts of northern IL so I'm not biting on this one lol. Would be nice though.

The fact that the Euro continues the weak sauce output definitely makes me lean towards it and the wussy GFS as well. Unfortunately it looks like the NAM/RGEM are incorrect. Lol @ <0.2" precip from here to Ottawa. A big F-U from the Euro along that corridor.