Northern Ohio Obs/Discussion Thread

[OHweather]

I'm not sure how well the WRF performs but it has been consistent in showing quite a heavy 322 band.

Bands off of Lake Michigan are intense and are making it all the way across the state and are clearly shifting south...it looks like winds have begun shifting over the far western basin. CLE has 20-25 knot winds over the lake by this evening and that should be enough to push things farther inland tonight. Again as I said yesterday was unsure of major accums before this evening so this isn't a huge detriment to the forecast, although it is nice that parts of Lake County saw a quick 3-5". From what I can tell it's mainly bay/shore ice over western Lake Erie although I didn't look too long at webcams.

The hi-res NAM is on board with the idea of a primary band (finally) and clobbers from about Trent's backyard ESE...would clobber from 322 into Solon even...has .5-1" QPF over a good chunk of northern/eastern Cuyahoga.

[NEOH]

I'm not sure how well the WRF performs but it has been consistent in showing quite a heavy 322 band.

Bands off of Lake Michigan are intense and are making it all the way across the state and are clearly shifting south...it looks like winds have begun shifting over the far western basin. CLE has 20-25 knot winds over the lake by this evening and that should be enough to push things farther inland tonight. Again as I said yesterday was unsure of major accums before this evening so this isn't a huge detriment to the forecast, although it is nice that parts of Lake County saw a quick 3-5". From what I can tell it's mainly bay/shore ice over western Lake Erie although I didn't look too long at webcams.

The hi-res NAM is on board with the idea of a primary band (finally) and clobbers from about Trent's backyard ESE...would clobber from 322 into Solon even...has .5-1" QPF over a good chunk of northern/eastern Cuyahoga.

 

Thanks for keeping an eye on things. Good to hear the hi-res NAM is on board as well. Time to wait until the winds shift. I'm not certain the winds will come around until after midnight. Looking upstream I wonder if that band across MI isn't some sort of lake induced trough.

 

As long as the winds stay up I'm not too concerned about rapid ice cover... although I do tend to obsess about it.

[OhioBlizzard]

Just looked at Bufkit... winds don't turn any more northerly than 280 late tonight. It's going to be tough to get the band south if there is any sort of land breeze keeping covergence over the lake. Hopefully winds will be strong enough to prevent that and lock the band along the lakeshore.

yea , like I have been mentioning models have been over doing the northerly component. 290 is about the max I see, with 280 more realistic.

[OHweather]

Thanks for keeping an eye on things. Good to hear the hi-res NAM is on board as well. Time to wait until the winds shift. I'm not certain the winds will come around until after midnight. Looking upstream I wonder if that band across MI isn't some sort of lake induced trough.

 

As long as the winds stay up I'm not too concerned about rapid ice cover... although I do tend to obsess about it.

 

I would be more concerned about ice forming later in the week when the winds are lighter...we can see days of temps in the teens but if winds are gusty not a lot of ice will form...a night or two in the single digits with calm winds though and it really ices up.

 

There is certainly some nice convergence over southern MI so that may be a trough of some sort. Will be interesting to see what happens when that pushes south towards southern Lake Erie late this afternoon.

yea , like I have been mentioning models have been over doing the northerly component. 290 is about the max I see, with 280 more realistic.

This has screamed a setup where banding mainly stays in Cuyahoga/Geauga Counties but grazes northern Summit/Portage from time to time later tonight and right now the wind flow still looks good for that. If you are where I think you are it will be painfully close tonight into tomorrow and will probably stay just north of you but will be close. I may be wrong but I tend to remember where northern Ohio posters are even from other forums, I think I remember talking to you a good bit a couple winters ago elsewhere.

[OhioBlizzard]

I'm not sure how well the WRF performs but it has been consistent in showing quite a heavy 322 band.

Bands off of Lake Michigan are intense and are making it all the way across the state and are clearly shifting south...it looks like winds have begun shifting over the far western basin. CLE has 20-25 knot winds over the lake by this evening and that should be enough to push things farther inland tonight. Again as I said yesterday was unsure of major accums before this evening so this isn't a huge detriment to the forecast, although it is nice that parts of Lake County saw a quick 3-5". From what I can tell it's mainly bay/shore ice over western Lake Erie although I didn't look too long at webcams.

The hi-res NAM is on board with the idea of a primary band (finally) and clobbers from about Trent's backyard ESE...would clobber from 322 into Solon even...has .5-1" QPF over a good chunk of northern/eastern Cuyahoga.

nam has come back a little more south on the latest run.

[OhioBlizzard]

Thanks for keeping an eye on things. Good to hear the hi-res NAM is on board as well. Time to wait until the winds shift. I'm not certain the winds will come around until after midnight. Looking upstream I wonder if that band across MI isn't some sort of lake induced trough.

 

As long as the winds stay up I'm not too concerned about rapid ice cover... although I do tend to obsess about it.

Winds will be pushing a decent band of snow through the northern primary belt well before midnight. My guess is around 6-8 pm things will kick up again. Great area of convergence is showing up on models from around euclid to chardon in that time period.

[Trent]

Take a look at the ARW rolling in now. Wow juiced up for sure. A classic 1-2' event on paper, now all it has to do is snow.

[OhioBlizzard]

I would be more concerned about ice forming later in the week when the winds are lighter...we can see days of temps in the teens but if winds are gusty not a lot of ice will form...a night or two in the single digits with calm winds though and it really ices up.

 

There is certainly some nice convergence over southern MI so that may be a trough of some sort. Will be interesting to see what happens when that pushes south towards southern Lake Erie late this afternoon.

This has screamed a setup where banding mainly stays in Cuyahoga/Geauga Counties but grazes northern Summit/Portage from time to time later tonight and right now the wind flow still looks good for that. If you are where I think you are it will be painfully close tonight into tomorrow and will probably stay just north of you but will be close. I may be wrong but I tend to remember where northern Ohio posters are even from other forums, I think I remember talking to you a good bit a couple winters ago elsewhere.

I agree about the ice, shouldn't be a problem. I believe you were on Accuweather Forums and thats probably where you remember me from as I think you had the same name on there. I'm in Streetsboro so thats what I am fearing to. All north of me. Really not expecting to much here. I just hope someone gets hit good. At least parts of lake county already got about 5".

[NEOH]

Take a look at the ARW rolling in now. Wow juiced up for sure. A classic 1-2' event on paper, now all it has to do is snow.

 

Nice consistency in the models regarding precip amounts. Going to be fun to watch. But yeah, now we need the snow to start falling.

[NEOH]

Winds will be pushing a decent band of snow through the northern primary belt well before midnight. My guess is around 6-8 pm things will kick up again. Great area of convergence is showing up on models from around euclid to chardon in that time period.

Nice. The earlier the winds veer the better. CLE's mentioned in the aviation portion of the AFD that the winds may not turn until Tuesday. Wind forecast on LE also shows that so perhaps that's where they got that from.

[Trent]

If it's not snowing/ a decent band hasn't developed at daybreak tomorrow then it probably won't happen.

I wonder if the media outlets will be hyping the mega band tonight? Funny how the CLE afds now fail to mention it now that it's imminent.

I'm pretty much setting myself up for major disappointment after seeing run after run of 12-24" snows.

[OHweather]

The primary band over the lake is continuing to slowly shift south and is going to try to begin affecting Ashtabula lakeshore soon. There does appear to be a weak surface trough over southern lower MI with convergence that is directing snow showers towards western Lake Erie. As the surface low that developed over Lake Superior continues to slowly move east through the evening the winds should gradually turn more westerly and the WNW after midnight, allowing the primary band which essentially is already out there and fairly strong to slowly shift south into first Lake/Geauga and then Cuyahoga County. It will be interesting to see where the band ends up sitting late tonight/tomorrow because that is where totals may be excessive.

[OhioBlizzard]

Nice. The earlier the winds veer the better. CLE's mentioned in the aviation portion of the AFD that the winds may not turn until Tuesday. Wind forecast on LE also shows that so perhaps that's where they got that from.

What model wind forecast was that from if you can remember? Looking at all the rapid refresh models, most are in agreement that winds should shift in the next few hour. Kind of disappointed with CLE. They haven't done that well with this event. They still were forecasting parts of SE cuyohoga to get 3-5 inches of snow today in their morning package this morning which all signs pointed against. How much Did you get from that band early this morning?

[OhioBlizzard]

The primary band over the lake is continuing to slowly shift south and is going to try to begin affecting Ashtabula lakeshore soon. There does appear to be a weak surface trough over southern lower MI with convergence that is directing snow showers towards western Lake Erie. As the surface low that developed over Lake Superior continues to slowly move east through the evening the winds should gradually turn more westerly and the WNW after midnight, allowing the primary band which essentially is already out there and fairly strong to slowly shift south into first Lake/Geauga and then Cuyahoga County. It will be interesting to see where the band ends up sitting late tonight/tomorrow because that is where totals may be excessive.

Looks like winds should shift due west around 5 pm with a wnw flow coming down across the lake which should lead to good convergence around 6 ish for the northern primary belt and then like you said shifts south. Some of the latest rapid refresh models actually have it moving south fairly quick into the southern primary belt by 8 pm which seems a little early but will have to see if the trend continues. Until this early this evening, areas within say 5 miles of the coast could get into some decent show showers at times and maybe get 1-2. Up by conneaut could be more

[Trent]

Wow. I can't believe that discussion out of CLE! Just awful, no mention of band movement/development at all.

[OhioBlizzard]

Wow. I can't believe that discussion out of CLE! Just awful, no mention of band movement/development at all.

Typical CLE. Sad that you have to go BUF or Grand Rapids for a decent afd in terms of lake effect

[OHweather]

Wow. I can't believe that discussion out of CLE! Just awful, no mention of band movement/development at all.

This is so par for the course out of them...the met who wrote it is particularly bad...often times in big events his AFDs feature terms such as "will stick with the plan" or "after coordination" or better yet "due to uncertainty will differ headlines to the next shift"...and very rarely feature any kind of meteorological reasoning. Not saying that the above three terms are bad BUT without accompanying reasoning it gets annoying.

[Trent]

CLE dangling the mega-band carrot. Certainly not unreasonable given the wind direction which looks to be 270 - 290... which is as good as it gets for a primary band. This brings the entire western basin into play... about 90 miles of open water from CLE to far western shore. 280-290 flow would be ideal for cuyahoga county. Anything less and the band would head up the lakeshore to lake county.

IF THE INSTABILITY IS STRONG ENOUGH AND FETCH REACHES THE LONGEST TRAJECTORY OVER THE WATER...MEANING WEST TO EAST FLOW...ON TUESDAY INTO TUESDAY NIGHT...THERE EXISTS THE POTENTIAL FOR A MEGA BAND THAT COULD DEVELOP. THE BAND COULD EXTEND INTO NORTHEAST OHIO AND NORTHWEST PENNSYLVANIA TUESDAY INTO WEDNESDAY.

FLOW BECOMES WELL ALIGNED ALONG THE LAKE SHORE AND THIS WILL SUPPORT THE POTENTIAL FOR HEAVY LAKE EFFECT SNOW. SO...WE WILL HAVE TO MONITOR THIS SITUATION AND WATCH AND SEE HOW IT DEVELOPS OVER THE NEXT FEW DAYS. SHEAR DOES NOT REALLY DEVELOP UNTIL LATE WEDNESDAY

AND THIS COULD BE APPROXIMATELY A 36 HOUR PERIOD OF LAKE EFFECT SNOW.

Had to bump this. More mega band talk then than now.

[OhioBlizzard]

Conneaut up to Dunkirk ny is getting hit pretty good right now. I 90 up there would be a nightmare right now

[Trent]

I have to laugh at the warning text. Doesn't give any indication of where they anticipate the heaviest snow. 6-20" has got to be one of the largest ranges I have ever seen for a warning. My point and click has 1-3" tonight and tomorrow, so clearly their grids have had some downward adjustments.

 

But regardless of what happens at least one of the forecast products is sure to verify!

 

I will say though that if a primary band of snow develops tonight and deposits some of the amounts that a few of the high res models have been pumping out, tomorrow will be a huge catch up day. 

 

On another note, it does appear that the high-res models are performing quite well. They had scattered snow showers yesterday, lifting north, then producing a band of snow on a WSW wind, then moving up into W NY and Erie, PA, then settling back to a primary east west band this evening. I'm not sure I agree with the broad brush accums that both the NWS and media outlets have been tossing. If this were BUF, they'd be analyzing band structure/place/propagation/etc. I flipped on one of the local TV stations to basically hear a flat out admission that they didn't want to forecast; "look, this is lake effect, we all know how it works, some will get snow and some won't ... so don't be surprised if you get some snow or get none at all." Apparently the science of meteorology and actually producing a forecast has been given up here.

[OHweather]

I have to laugh at the warning text. Doesn't give any indication of where they anticipate the heaviest snow. 6-20" has got to be one of the largest ranges I have ever seen for a warning. My point and click has 1-3" tonight and tomorrow, so clearly their grids have had some downward adjustments.

 

But regardless of what happens at least one of the forecast products is sure to verify!

 

I will say though that if a primary band of snow develops tonight and deposits some of the amounts that a few of the high res models have been pumping out, tomorrow will be a huge catch up day. 

 

On another note, it does appear that the high-res models are performing quite well. They had scattered snow showers yesterday, lifting north, then producing a band of snow on a WSW wind, then moving up into W NY and Erie, PA, then settling back to a primary east west band this evening. I'm not sure I agree with the broad brush accums that both the NWS and media outlets have been tossing. If this were BUF, they'd be analyzing band structure/place/propagation/etc. I flipped on one of the local TV stations to basically hear a flat out admission that they didn't want to forecast; "look, this is lake effect, we all know how it works, some will get snow and some won't ... so don't be surprised if you get some snow or get none at all." Apparently the science of meteorology and actually producing a forecast has been given up here.

I'm sitting here trying to pin-point things such as band placement because it's my turn to update my website's snow map for snow from tonight-Wednesday night...but I guess I'll just go broad-brush city to match the NWS/media outlets since no one in the city wants to try.

I have a feeling the media is broad-brushing because that is what the NWS is doing. I'm watching Tanchak right now because I'm curious to see if he broad-brushed too...he usually isn't afraid to make a call on this.

 

Edit: Tanchak has 4-8" for Lake/Ashtabula and northern Geauga and 1-4" from northern Lorain County through much of Cuyahoga and extreme northern Summit/Portage/Trumbull along with the rest of Geauga County...I don't quite agree with it but at least he made a call...that's just for tonight, didn't show anything specific for tomorrow onward.

[dta1984]

Looks like the show has started here. Coming down hard and accumulating fast!  Hopefully it keeps up for a while!

[OhioBlizzard]

Looks like the show has started here. Coming down hard and accumulating fast!  Hopefully it keeps up for a while!

yep right around 6 things fired up. best area of convergence should stay in the northern to central primary belt through midnight so I expect anywhere from chesterland north and all points east to get the worst of it and it could pile up fast with rates at 1" +. Band should be pretty stationary in that general area for about the next 4-5 hours so I wouldn't be shocked to see some 4-5" amounts maybe even a half foot by midnight. Should not be until after midnight that the southern primary belt gets in on the real action and could even be a few hours after midnight.

[OhioBlizzard]

On a side note, maybe CLE is hiring. From what I have seen a few of us in this thread could do a much better job than what some of the folks out there are putting out for forecast products. I think LEOH said earlier that they were predicting the lake effect to stay out over the lake until after midnight. LOL.

[Trent]

I did happen to catch fox 8. They were calling for 3-6"  total through WEDNESDAY NIGHT for virtually all of Cuyahoga and most of Lake. They had a snippet of 4-8" for extreme eastern Cuyahoga and Geauga with a blob over Geauga saying potentially more. Wow. That is an incredibly low forecast for total through Wednesday night. 

 

Perhaps they're right, or perhaps the many cry wolf fails of this winter have drained the public and it's just easier to err on the low side of things. 

 

I know I won't sleep much tonight wondering if the band has made it this far south.

[OhioBlizzard]

I did happen to catch fox 8. They were calling for 3-6"  total through WEDNESDAY NIGHT for virtually all of Cuyahoga and most of Lake. They had a snippet of 4-8" for extreme eastern Cuyahoga and Geauga with a blob over Geauga saying potentially more. Wow. That is an incredibly low forecast for total through Wednesday night. 

 

Perhaps they're right, or perhaps the many cry wolf fails of this winter have drained the public and it's just easier to err on the low side of things. 

 

I know I won't sleep much tonight wondering if the band has made it this far south.

Yes, that is really low especially for the northern primary belt which in areas will probably see four inches plus by midnight. I know someone in Erie pa that told me they got nearly a foot today, so if we can get consistant banding in some areas like they had, 4-8" through wednesday will be a huge bust. Will probably be after midnight before that band creeps south towards Cleveland.

[Trent]

If you look at the Kain Fritsch model out of BUF, it appears to have accurately placed the band where it is now. It has it shifting south shortly and then staying put through early morning. It only maxes out about 0.3" which would be good for up to 6" overnight. The band fizzles by mid morning and then some cellular pop ups of snow through the day before a similar band develops overnight.

 

I realize there are dozens of scenarios with the snow bands. But for the time being, everything overnight is going to come from the band we see on radar, if you're not in it, you're not getting anything. 

[OHweather]

CLE upped totals to 1-3 feet in the warning text.

[OhioBlizzard]

If you look at the Kain Fritsch model out of BUF, it appears to have accurately placed the band where it is now. It has it shifting south shortly and then staying put through early morning. It only maxes out about 0.3" which would be good for up to 6" overnight. The band fizzles by mid morning and then some cellular pop ups of snow through the day before a similar band develops overnight.

 

I realize there are dozens of scenarios with the snow bands. But for the time being, everything overnight is going to come from the band we see on radar, if you're not in it, you're not getting anything. 

Hey can you post the link for that. Couldn't find it on BUF web page. It does look like the band is trying to wobble south by I think it could just be a wobble and generally stay in the northern primary but we shall see. I agree with the cellular aspect for tommorow. Shear tommorow between surface and 700 mb gets to near 50 degrees which should lead to that type of activity. I agree that if your not under that band your not getting anything. Its actually clear down here in northern portage.

[OHweather]

Trent, we expect to hear from you soon: