Chicago WX

Pea sized hail here right now. Just pouring down. Yard is covered. Temp down 20 degrees in minutes.

Storm earlier today around 1:30 was probably the coolest looking clouds I’ve seen. Sky looked like mud with the dust, and it was dark as night. Should’ve snapped a pic, but I guess I was too much in awe.

On 2/9/2025 at 12:35 PM, Chicago WX said:

Nah, north of your line is in play too. Just loop the ensembles. GEFS, EPS, etc. It's a pretty good parade of systems coming through our region every 3-4-5 days. Just taking the 12z EPS through 9/10 days: it's this coming Wednesday, next weekend, and then next Tuesday/Wednesday. Details TBD, but I think quite a few us are in play for good snowfall in the next couple of weeks. Just takes one to phase in a piece or good chunk of the PV, and it's boom. No guarantees on that of course, but it's not improbable.

Next weekend on the 12z EPS. Pretty good agreement. Granted we would like the mean farther northwest a bit, but there are left leaners. 

 

This sorta kinda worked out. Systems themselves weren't noteworthy, but the EPS flagged them pretty well. 6" total IMBY. Wished they would've been better.

Looks like the last of the 3 will be the biggest dog of them all, as MO, southern 1/2 or 1/3 of IL/IN/OH look to grab a pretty good snowstorm this week. Funny how the "southern" storms tend to work out well this winter... 

1.5" from the WAA here. And looks like that will be final. 

35 minutes ago, A-L-E-K said:

yeah, def skewing more the longshot direction given ensemble looks and nothing on recent short term guidance screams good trends incoming. waa thump looks p locked and loaded for a a couple hours of well timed mood flakes tho (event of the year?) and hoping we can get a slower solution with a ull to our south manages to work out somehow

extremely busy day little time for tracking 

We're running out of time. I'd still trust the Euro/EPS over any other piece of guidance, and it has come farther northwest every run since 0z Thursday. But they are relatively small bumps. I think we're cooked to be honest, but parts of Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, and Ontario may still do well with the main show. 6z runs were a step back across the board, so that isn't good for us. If I can somehow pull 2-3" total out of this whole thing, I'll consider it a win. But, what could have been... 

Somewhat desperate times I guess, but here's the 18z GGEM. Hits NE IN, NW OH and SE MI pretty good. Decent for the rest of us.

12 minutes ago, A-L-E-K said:

Is it too much to ask for a couple more bumps? Fully sampled now so no surprises but the trend actually feels like a trend not intra model wobbles. 

Yeah, seems that way. There's been a few models, some bad models, that have liked the idea of this storm. But getting the EC and GFS on board would be reassuring. Hopefully their respective ensembles are leading the way.

18z GEFS more amped.

1 hour ago, A-L-E-K said:

EPS gonna tick stronger/north with slp, gotta imagine lots of dtw majors in that mix

QPF on the EPS mean is showing more for a deformation with the 12z run. It’s not “wet”, but it’s a start.

We ride with the Ukie and the Canadian twins.

23 minutes ago, Cary67 said:

Quite the spread from 10.6" at RFD

January was decent here despite the CAD hell. We again got lucky with KC-STL-Louisville storm in Jan. Caught a fgen band that dumped 3” in 2 hours, and then other pennies and nickels along the way. Had snow cover almost the entire month.

Final: 4.5" on 0.32" liquid, 14:1 ratio. Up to 20.6" for the season. 

ILX radar starting to light up with this next round. If you can get lucky and get stuck under ones of those bands for awhile, it'll heal some wounds. 

19 minutes ago, madwx said:

if you get enough forcing/upward motion to tap into the DGZ then you get really good rates, otherwise it's very blah. 

That's the truth. After our first push today, we went to needles. When the good returns moved back overhead later, back came the good flakes. Speaking of, getting another one of those right now. Measured 2.8" when I got home from work, so we'll beat the season high event of 3.0". I'll take it.

2 minutes ago, sbnwx85 said:

Good info as this band appears to be flocking this way.

It’s backed off now, but you’ll enjoy if you get into it. Solid hour of rip city. Thing is, there was a better looking band that went south of here thru Iroquois county.

16 minutes ago, Chicago WX said:

Rip city here for the past 30 minutes and still going. Flake size back to good, visibility about a block currently. I’m pleased.

Stopped at my house and measured. Total weenie move, but whatever. 2.5” so far. Still dumping. Got very very lucky here.

Rip city here for the past 30 minutes and still going. Flake size back to good, visibility about a block currently. I’m pleased.

I have a nice vantage point on my route on the southwest side of the city. Neat seeing the distance disappear as the snow got closer. Flakes size has been really good here to be honest. Every flake is sticking. Hopefully we can squeeze out an inch or two out of this whole mess. Regardless, I always enjoy seeing snow. 
 

EDIT: I see LOT updated and said snow quality south of I88 is poor, which of course is not true here right now.

27 minutes ago, King James said:

Looking like 1-3 inches here in IKK and some freezing rain. Big time lol

That was like 24 hours ago. And just the NAM and one forecaster. Talking freezing rain. Alas, looking good 2-4” of sand. Enjoy!

22 minutes ago, sbnwx85 said:

I am so back.

We ride.

18 minutes ago, Stebo said:

We haven't had a winter storm warning in over 2 years, we need something.

lol, we haven’t been setting records over here either. Just thought it was funny seeing the comment and then looking at the map of 12-18” across the southern half of lower Michigan. All the while I was just super ecstatic with my 8.3”. Which I’d take, but you know…

Well, it’d make southern lower Michigan people happy, that’s for sure. 

Low floor, high ceiling. But this probably won’t be for the faint of heart. I’ll probably check back in on Friday. 

I think there’s a decent chance that a good part of Illinois is fighting for 1-3” tops. Northern 1/4 (QC, RFD, ORD, etc) should be fine (3-6”) but they’ll have the mid-level low snows to depend on, while the rest of us are banking on the main low which looks to develop slower and farther east than earlier predicted. Models really hitting this idea right now.

Seems models have gotten worse these days. Maybe too models and too many model runs? Feels like back in the day you could count on their depiction 3-4 days out, with some relative minor corrections as you got closer. Now its wholesale changes 24-36 hours out. Euro especially has become undependable, unlike the past. Used to be ironclad. Now it's like the 51 hour RAP.

Oh well I guess. My original thoughts with this one were a 3-5/4-6" type system. Might be more like 1-3/3-5" at this point. 

10 minutes ago, Stevo6899 said:

Rgem took a step towards gfs/ukie. Interesting battle setting up as usual.

18z GFS ticked northwest. I mean, I'm not surprised.