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Lake effect snow potential this weekend


Hoosier

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Do you remember the last event to produce 6" of pure lake effect downtown? The event last winter produced the most snow north of the city IIRC. 1/20/09 came up a little short. 1/22/05 was enhanced for a while so the question is where the line is between enhancement and pure lake effect. Other than that I can't remember anything in recent times.

I have a terrible memory for events but i can't remember a single 6+ LE event in the city (outside maybe the far SE side) that didn't have a decent synoptic component.

EDIT: point now 1-3 aft, 3-5 evening...really have to imagine this is overdone...if not this will be a special rare event.

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It is interesting the number of pure LES events on the west side of Lake MI in recent years. With the trend of less ice cover in mid-winter on Lake MI one has to believe this increased LES trend will continue into future winters (unless of course ice cover trends reverse). I am not saying they didn't happen before but there does seem to be an increase amount of these events in recent years.

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Do you remember the last event to produce 6" of pure lake effect downtown? The event last winter produced the most snow north of the city IIRC. 1/20/09 came up a little short. 1/22/05 was enhanced for a while so the question is where the line is between enhancement and pure lake effect. Other than that I can't remember anything in recent times.

January 22, 2005. 8" of system snow and the rest was LES

SM012305SUN.jpg

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AREA FORECAST DISCUSSION

NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE CHICAGO/ROMEOVILLE IL

901 PM CST THU FEB 9 2012

WILL CONTINUE WITH LAKE EFFECT SNOW WATCH AS IS. AFTER EVALUATING AFTERNOON AND EARLY EVENING GUIDANCE...INCLUDING A VARIETY OF HIGH RES SOLUTIONS FROM VARIOUS SOURCES...SPECIFICS OF LOCATION AND AMOUNTS NOT COMPLETELY CLEAR...AT LEAST TO THE POINT WHERE CONFIDENCE IS HIGH ENOUGH TO ADJUST TO WARNING OR ADVISORY. SOME GUIDANCE CONTINUES TO SUGGEST THAT AN EASTERLY COMPONENT TO THE FETCH OFF THE LAKE IS LESS LIKELY OR AT LEAST SHORT LIVED SUPPORTING A MORE TRADITIONAL DUE NORTH FETCH BAND INTO NW IN. IT STILL APPEARS THAT THE SHORELINE OF SOUTHERN COOK COUNTY AND WILL COUNTY NEAR THE IL/IN STATE LINE WOULD BE AFFECTED AT LEAST EARLY ON. IT IS POSSIBLE THAT IF WINDS DO NOT HAVE AN INITIAL EASTERLY COMPONENT THEN THE DURATION THAT THEY STAY DUE NORTH WILL BE LONGER BEFORE TURNING NORTHWEST SATURDAY MORNING. THIS COULD RESULT IN A MORE ANCHORED BAND AND HIGHER SNOW TOTALS OVER A MORE FOCUSED AREA...LIKELY SLIGHTLY FURTHER EAST THAN THE CURRENT FORECAST. LIMITING FACTORS OF DRY ADVECTION AND A MORE ANTICYCLONIC CURVATURE TO THE FLOW DEVELOPING FRIDAY NIGHT REMAIN A CONCERN IN TERMS OF MAX SNOWFALL AMOUNTS. OVERALL LAKE COUNTY INDIANA SEEMS TO HAVE THE BEST CHANCE AT WARNING CRITERIA SNOW DESPITE THE RANGE OF SOLUTIONS...WITH POTENTIAL ACROSS FAR EASTERN COOK/WILL COUNTIES AND PORTER COUNTY CONTINUING AS WELL BUT WITH LOWER CONFIDENCE. WILL CONTINUE TO MONITOR NEW GUIDANCE AS IT ARRIVES. TIMING STILL LOOKS ON TRACK WITH LAKE EFFECT SETTING UP LATE AFTERNOON/EARLY EVENING FOLLOWING SYNOPTIC SCALE SNOW.

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The NAM and GFS definitely have the band starting in IL with a easterly flow influence initially.

Milwaukee acknowledging westward drift on NAM.

000

FXUS63 KMKX 100339 AAC

AFDMKX

AREA FORECAST DISCUSSION...UPDATED

NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE MILWAUKEE/SULLIVAN WI

939 PM CST THU FEB 9 2012

UPDATED FOR REVISED SMALL CRAFT ADVISORY CODE AT BOTTOM OF PRODUCT.

.UPDATE...

NEW NAM HAS COME IN WITH A BIT MORE LAKE-EFFECT...ESPECIALLY FROM

MKE AND SOUTH...WITH TOTAL QPF STILL ABOUT 0.10 TO 0.15 INCH. WITH

EXPECTED SNOW RATIOS RISING FROM 15:1 AT THE START TO AROUND

20:1...COULD SEE UP TO 2 TO 3 INCHES ALONG THE LAKESHORE FROM MKE

SOUTH TO THE IL BORDER. WILL NOT JUMP AT THIS YET UNTIL OTHER

MODEL DATA COMES IN. INLAND AREAS REMAIN UNCHANGED WITH ONLY

AROUND 0.03 TOTAL QPF ON LATEST NAM. TEMPERATURES WILL REMAIN

FAIRLY STEADY UNTIL COLD AIR SPREADS IN BEHIND SURFACE TROUGH

AFTER 10Z. OVERNIGHT LOWS BETWEEN 12Z AND 14Z MAY DOUBLE AS DAYTIME

HIGHS.

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Looks like the WRF out of STL wants to do work in Lake/Porter from 06-12z Saturday.

Still concerned over the transient nature of the band. Therefore, as of now I am not planning on making the trip. If we could get the band to sit and rip for 8+ hours, we'd have ourselves a pretty decent event--one that I would "chase".

Also, liking Ryan's call. The only difference in opinion lies south of the Kankakee River.

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I know Hoosier referenced it earlier as one to keep an eye on, but the 0z RGEM looks like a Lake and Porter County special. Essentially, little to nothing for the IL side.

Hard to tell since we are also dealing with light precip from the system but it looks like it would start it off on the WI/IL shore as other models are showing but then it's hammer time in NW IN after that. 

00_054_R1_north@america_I_4PAN_CLASSIC@012_024.jpg 

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Hard to tell since we are also dealing with light precip from the system but it looks like it would start it off on the WI/IL shore as other models are showing but then it's hammer time in NW IN after that.

That sounds right. I tried to get a better idea by looking at the RGEM p-type maps.

http://collaboration.cmc.ec.gc.ca/cmc/cmdn/pcpn_type/pcpn_type_gem_reg.html

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Am I seeing a meso scale feature in this image over eastern Lake County and over the adjacent waters?

hrw-arw_eus_021_sim_radar.gif

Hard to say for sure. I don't see anything obvious in the surface pressure field on this model but others have been showing the general lake troffiness to some extent. Mesolow development would obviously complicate things. High instability/light winds is the best situation for mesolow development but it can also happen when the flow is stronger.

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Both the ARW and NMM look like they went about 5-10 miles east.

My guess is that the actual bullseye ends up being Portage-Valpo. The NAM keeps trending with less and less easterly winds and it's extremely difficult for Lake County to be the bullseye in a situation like this w/o sustained NNE mean low-level flow.

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My guess is that the actual bullseye ends up being Portage-Valpo.  The NAM keeps trending with less and less easterly winds and it's extremely difficult for Lake County to be the bullseye in a situation like this w/o sustained NNE mean low-level flow.

You could be right. Will be interesting to see it unfold tomorrow. I think there's probably enough evidence now for LOT to do some trimming on the western side.

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