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January 2013 General Discussion


Chicago Storm

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Decent little vort with this thing.  Maybe a few pockets of overachievement possible.

 

Looks like that snow this weekend would be completely at night (for IL). Roughly from 6pm Saturday - 6am Sunday.

The wave on Saturday does look slightly better organized on the 00z NAM, but some of the issues I noticed when I looked at it today are still there. The forcing, while decent, looks to be weakening/shearing out as the wave pushes into IL. At the onset (21z NAM sounding for ORD), the low levels are a bit marginal thermally so the snow would have to come down hard at that time to accumulate efficiently, which may be tough given the weakening forcing:

NAM_218_2013010400_F45_42.0000N_88.0000W

The sounding looks decent and colder at 00z:

NAM_218_2013010400_F48_42.0000N_88.0000W

But then at 03z (and 6z and 9z), the low levels remain saturated, but saturation is lost in the snow growth region, so if anything there might be some leftover freezing drizzle and an occasional flurry once to Sat evening:

NAM_218_2013010400_F51_42.0000N_88.0000W

Since the GFS soundings tell a similar story, it looks like a short window (late afternoon/early eve) where there could be some light snow, transitioning to drizzle in the mid evening, and things would have to go right to even get a light accumulation out of this one. I for one hope that it overachieves and ORD gets its 1" accum so Gino can stop writing about it. :)

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All week highs have been in the upper 20's and low to mid 30's. If only we had a system with some juice to work with, this would have been a great week for a snowstorm.

 

Looks like we could warm back into the low to mid 50's next week. Hopefully, the warmup isn't here for long, and we cool back down with an open Gulf of Mexico to work with.

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Yeah unless the lake is active West Michigan and Chicago usually ( some exceptions ) have the same results. Most spots have between 6-9" for the season and yes that includes the heart of the Lake belts. Incredible stuff considering many of those areas should be at/around the 40" mark..

Been since 1952-53 since this area here has finished with below 30" on the season ( 27") and i imagine for them one has to go back to 1948-49. So far we are on pace with both. I suspect though we wont be talking futility for too much longer up this way. Gonna be very hard to do especially if we get that arctic chill late next week/beyond.. That will surely fire up the lake machine..

http://fox17online.com/2013/01/03/snow-drought-continues-in-michigan/

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Since the GFS soundings tell a similar story, it looks like a short window (late afternoon/early eve) where there could be some light snow, transitioning to drizzle in the mid evening, and things would have to go right to even get a light accumulation out of this one. I for one hope that it overachieves and ORD gets its 1" accum so Gino can stop writing about it. :)

 

A f*cking men. 

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Snow looks freshened up from all the wind last night. City plow truck out this AM to clean up the mess from all the drifting. Sunny and cold with the whistle of wind on the doors and windows too.

 

Hoping the warm up is short lived. The nightime lows still look to dip below freezing most night so there will be lost nightly spot check to do duriing this time. A week of continual Alberta clippers would really make me smile!!

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Snow looks freshened up from all the wind last night. City plow truck out this AM to clean up the mess from all the drifting. Sunny and cold with the whistle of wind on the doors and windows too.

 

Hoping the warm up is short lived. The nightime lows still look to dip below freezing most night so there will be lost nightly spot check to do duriing this time. A week of continual Alberta clippers would really make me smile!!

 

Do you live in an open area? I havent seen any drifting of the old snow, its quite settled. And yes, a clipper train would make me smile as well!

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This is pretty cool shot of Chicago taken by Cmdr. Chris Hadfield from his mission in space. On the north side and north shore, a meso band off the lake dumped 1-2 inches of snow on a limited area. There were a few smaller events between then and now. Despite ORD's snow drought, not more than nine miles away from the airport I have a glacier of 2 inches.

 

https://twitter.com/Cmdr_Hadfield/status/286932987407380480/photo/1

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GFS still won't blink...most offices are still riding the Euro...could we be looking at a pretty big failure for the Euro>

Isn't it all the models versus the euro? Looks like the euro isn't as warm as yesterday. Northern Michigan is forecasted to hit the mid 30s while the euro has 40+.... So I'm not sure who they are going with.

Jon

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Isn't it all the models versus the euro? Looks like the euro isn't as warm as yesterday. Jon

 

maybe can't say as i have looked at anything else..i usually don't unless an event is imminent.

 

either way, it's going to be a minor event for all....the good news is wave spacing looks good down the road.

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This is pretty cool shot of Chicago taken by Cmdr. Chris Hadfield from his mission in space. On the north side and north shore, a meso band off the lake dumped 1-2 inches of snow on a limited area. There were a few smaller events between then and now. Despite ORD's snow drought, not more than nine miles away from the airport I have a glacier of 2 inches.

 

https://twitter.com/Cmdr_Hadfield/status/286932987407380480/photo/1

 

That a really cool shot! Thanks for sharing.

 

You can really see the snow cover this morning across the entire region. Including the spot on the north side of Chicago.

 

wisgif32.jpg

 

Was pretty chilly this morning @ 12°. Wind is making it feel just as chilly now.

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My main concern was to keep the warmup south of 44 degrees N... It now looks to go north of that. Jon

 

verbatum, the GFS and its ensemble mean have 2m temps here getting no warmer than the mid-upper 30s. Its really not unheard of for surface temps to be much colder than the upper air numbers would indicate, but cue the "gfs has a cold bias 60s are on the way" posts.

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verbatum, the GFS and its ensemble mean have 2m temps here getting no warmer than the mid-upper 30s. Its really not unheard of for surface temps to be much colder than the upper air numbers would indicate, but cue the "gfs has a cold bias 60s are on the way" posts.

I'd be a rich guy if I had a dollar for every time the GFS 2m temps were underdone. That being said, there is snowpack to deal with and some uncertainty about how things evolve as far as the cutoff so there are reasons to not go all out yet.

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