MIstorm97

It was legit rippage After finally feeling better after New Years I was bored and just felt like taking a drive. Was worth it

Weenie-ing it up here at the Michigan State Capitol

Surprised to wake up to 0.9” of snow and sleet outside. Light freezing rain now. Heard pingers and went back to sleep, sad. Apparently it flipped to heavy snow.

Temp profile still is questionable here in SE MI. Small differences in the strength and depth of the warm nose will mean the difference between sleet and freezing rain here. Plus the onshore easterly surface flow will keep areas east of the glacial ridge, including the immediate Detroit area, slightly warmer. Areas along and west of the glacial ridge certainly have a greater risk of more significant ice accretion. This is demonstrated well in the 12z HREF mean FRAM accretion, with <0.1" accretion in Detroit, 0.1" imby, and 0.2-0.3" along and west of the glacial ridge. A WWA was just issued by DTX, which at this point is a good call. That pivot band of snow on the backside of this storm looks to pass over here after hitting the Chicago area. Going for an imby call of 0.1" of ice accretion and a couple tenths of sleet for the Friday afternoon/evening period, followed by some rain, and then transitioning back to wintry precip with 1.5" of snow falling. The trailing vort on Sunday looks good for 1-3" of snow as well.

21z RAP has a thin strip of 1-4" of sleet across MI. The warm nose is pretty shallow and small for the first few hours, so I could see how this ends up being more sleet than ZR for some areas. Honestly would prefer sleet over an ice storm.

Picked up a quick 1.0" of snow as that band moved through. Looking solid for a glaze of ice later tonight. Sitting at 10.8" for the season now.

TSSN by Nashville, MI as indicated on RadarScope

Made a call elsewhere of 1" of snow and a glaze of ice for mby, Looks money based off the HRRR. Jealous of those rates out by Chicago and in Iowa. Buddy in Carol Stream said vis had to have been under 1/10th mile at times.

It's a shame that I'll be watching this all slide north and hope to just get a glaze of ice before it melts.

Euro has upper 50s dews in the warm sector with SSE winds. Develops a secondary low over Indiana. Honestly that run verbatim is kinda similar to 12/1/18, just farther east. Obviously wouldn’t expect much at all, but it is something to watch with the low looking to track pretty far west.

Gonna be 33 and rain here for Wednesday and the New Years storm. Tuff

Impressive mesolow action west of South Haven

Hate 2 c it

Got a link for that?

Just like last year!

We can go nab the random Iowa tor that’ll happen at least

Parade of rainers and misses. Really rockin’

My family now has a place between Baldwin and Ludington, right on the Pere Marquette. So I’m definitely more into LES on the west side of the state now than I was before. Looks like this will put a decent bit of snow up there

Nvm couldn’t even muster a DAB Very tempting. Too bad Friday is Christmas Day

Never went to the Plains this year for chasing, as there was basically nothing to chase. Saw 8 tornadoes this year, all in Iowa and Illinois. I saw about 25ish waterspouts along the Great Lakes during a record-breaking waterspout season. This includes a waterspout with a rain and snow falling. Severe season locally was relatively dead this year...again. A moderate risk on June 10th failed to produce much. The most impressive storm was a single cell storm that had a downburst with winds of 60-70mph. I spent a week cleaning storm damage with the City of Royal Oak in their DPS parks and forestry department (my job). I covered a ton of lakeshore flooding events this year. January 11th in Chicago, March 6th in NW IN and SW MI, April 13th in SW MI, April 26th in N OH, November 1st in W MI, and November 15th also in W MI. The November 15th event was pretty intense with some of the most consistent big waves lashing the Grand Haven lighthouse that I’ve seen. The March 6th event was particularly intense in New Buffalo and did substantial damage to the beach park. There were a couple 6”+ snowstorms imby in the early part of the year (January 18th and February 25th-26th). An intense LES band from Lake Michigan dropped a few inches of snow quickly here on February 8th. Winter lingered right into May with accumulating snow early on Mother’s Day. So far in the winter of 2020-21, it’s been a zzzzfest with a 42hr 3.7” event being the biggest “storm”. Josh mentioned here the unusually long-lasting and vibrant fall colors. Boy were they great this year. Best I’ve seen in years. I spent every weekend in October going somewhere to take pictures of the fall colors. By far the biggest and most impactful event I saw was the Sanford and Edenville Dam failures. I originally went to Saginaw Bay on the 18th for lakeshore flooding, but a couple FFW for dams caught my attention and I went to the Secord Dam and saw unusually high discharge rates. I figured I needed to head back up this way the next day since major flooding was predicted on the Tittabawassee. I came back on the 19th to find significant flooding ongoing in Midland already. I then traveled to Sanford where Sanford Park was completely underwater. Some homes and businesses were taking on water at that point. I then moved to Edenville and Wixom Lake where numerous homes were under a few feet of water. It was at this time when disaster struck and the Edenville Dam collapsed. There were multiple people observing the record flooding near me when everyone’s wireless emergency alert went off alerting about the failure of the Edenville Dam. I raced south to Sanford to capture some of the ensuing chaos and evacuation, before evacuating to Freeland. The next day, the 20th, I started in downtown Midland where record flooding was ongoing. I saw some wildlife sadly swept down the river. The flooding in Midland was very impressive. I was in constant contact with TWC getting video out this entire time, as well as all the other major news networks through LSM. After getting everything I needed in Midland, I went to Sanford. The town had been effectively destroyed. When the Edenville Dam broke, it sent a torrent downstream that was too much for the Sanford Dam to hold. The Sanford Dam overtopped and then fully failed, with most of the earthen dam collapsing. A lot of homes in Sanford were completely wiped away off their foundations. Downtown Sanford was destroyed as well, with a few buildings leveled and the rest gutted by the flood. It was the worst flooding disaster since the great 1986 flood in Michigan, and honestly I’d put the May 2020 flood at the number 1 spot for worst Michigan floods. The Tittabawassee flood gauge in Midland broke the all-time record crest from 1986 by over a foot. It is a combination of luck and great evacuation procedures from EM and first responders that there were no fatalities or serious injuries. There’s other events locally that I’m sure I’m missing, but it was a relatively boring year. The lightning locally was better than last year I guess. Hopefully 2021 delivers more excitement, but with less destruction from dam failures. Forgive me for the long post with 15 pics haha, ended up being longer than I’d thought it’d be.

Looks like a solid DAB-0.5” tomorrow. Still gonna be a top 10 event

Added an additional 0.3” for a total of 1.9” yesterday. The final event total ended up being 3.7” here. Truly grinded out every last flake over 42 hours. Here’s some more video from yesterday

Well the snow started picking up mid afternoon, and then we got into a solid moderate snow band that has dropped an inch in two hours. I’m at 1.6” for the day so far. Nice surprise

Picked up 1.9” so far with a band of light snow lingering over. Probably should eek out just over 2”. Took some video yesterday when things picked back up in the evening. Itching to get an amped up snowstorm now after watching what’s gone on along the E coast and inland

Tbf I'm in that tiny 1.0-2.0 spot in SE Oakland County where it really has been underwhelming compared to close by areas...but yes SW MI has been poverty this winter.