February 21st - 23rd Winter Storm

[Chicago WX]

12z NAM's first real attempt at this system. Note, these are 24 hour totals through 0z Friday...there is some snowfall in Kansas missing from this image. Anyway, 18-20" lollis in Nebraska. And the QC getting teased...

 

 

[gosaints]

That's because the globals aren't phasing the Polar and Subtropical jet anymore, it will only take a small shift for that solution to come back and then we could have our blizzard again. It's common for models to have some magor shifts as we cross from the mid range to the short range too, especially as the storm comes over the North America obs network after being over open waters with little obs. But I'm not holding my breath waiting for the blizzard solution to come back, it could just as easily get less impressive.

So no throwing in the towel yet?

[Harry Perry]

I think this image pretty much sums this storm up

Haha I agree.

This storm just won't pan out for areas East of St. Louis to... ohhh say about Green Bay.

Like Harry mentioned earlier, this storm is too close to the northern jet to get much of a southern push to grab some of that gulf moisture and thus keeping the SLP alive, or better yet, stronger and pushing NE into Canada.

I for once this winter AM NOT SURPRISED. As soon as I saw this system a week ago I laughed, switched tabs back to YouTube and kept watching "The Fine Young Cannibals - She Drives Me Crazy".  

[Harry Perry]

12z NAM's first real attempt at this system. Note, these are 24 hour totals through 0z Friday...there is some snowfall in Kansas missing from this image. Anyway, 18-20" lollis in Nebraska. And the QC getting teased...

 

2:18 12z NAM 24 hr snow thru 0z 2:22.gif

For some...

  for the rest!

[Chicago WX]

12z GFS manages to getting a blob of decent precip to LAF at 87 hours. Sweet.

 

Looks further south and weaker with the low in that timeframe, not that it matters much. 

[hawkeye_wx]

12z GFS is the driest run yet for Iowa.  The wave of snow weakens so fast as it pushes across the state that CR barely even gets to 0.25" qpf now.

[Chicago WX]

Like pulling teeth.

 

0z GFS 60 hour total QPF through 0z Saturday

 

12z GFS 60 hour total QPF through 0z Saturday

[snowstormcanuck]

I can recall some early occluders but I can't remember a storm that's so impressive in the Plains unraveling to the point where there's virtually zero QPF by the time it reaches 80W. 

 

edit: maybe less impressive than I thought. Looks like 12z GFS at its peak gets central pressure down to 996mb. I seem to recall earlier runs being deeper than this.

[Chicago WX]

I can recall some early occluders but I can't remember a storm that's so impressive in the Plains unraveling to the point where there's virtually zero QPF by the time it reaches 80W. 

 

edit: maybe less impressive than I thought. Looks like 12z GFS at its peak gets central pressure down to 996mb. I seem to recall earlier runs being deeper than this.

 

Impressive enough though, that it dumps 12"+ snowfall amounts out there...then fizzles fairly quickly as it moves east.

[wisconsinwx]

I can't help now but go with an early 1-2" for Milwaukee, probably on the higher end of that in Chicago, and 3-5" in Madison.  Quad Cities will do a bit better, also around 3-5".

[cyclone77]

Now down to <0.25" of precip on the GFS here.  Drying trend continues.  My early call of 1-3" for the QC looking a bit bullish. 

[gosaints]

oh LOL GGEM,..

[Chicago WX]

Quite the struggle for the Canadian. Would be an interesting solution for STL though.

[Hoosier]

Chad going with 1-3" snow/sleet and 1/8" ice for LAF. Seems reasonable though am not seeing a bunch of sleet at this point...I think it could be a fairly straight transition from snow-freezing rain and possibly ending with some spits of plain rain.

[Chicago WX]

12z GFS text for LAF. "Bullish" for front end snow. 

 

 

84 02/22 00Z   25     21     112      13    0.13  0.00    542    557   -1.7 -17.3 1018.8  99 -SN90 02/22 06Z   26     24     113       9    0.27  0.00    538    551   -1.6 -19.9 1016.5  97 -SN   96 02/22 12Z   27     26     112       5    0.02  0.00    539    551   -2.4 -20.4 1014.8  90 -FZRN102 02/22 18Z   33     33     182       4    0.01  0.00    540    553   -1.1 -20.9 1015.7  95 -RA 108 02/23 00Z   33     32     220       4    0.01  0.00    539    553   -1.6 -21.9 1016.0  99 -RA

[Geos]

Skilling going with 2-4" now with increasing amounts as you go west through IL.

[Chicago WX]

Wax on, wax off. 12z Euro with a nice "pulse" of QPF for Chicago/NE IL at 90 hours, relatively speaking.

[Thundersnow12]

Wax on, wax off. 12z Euro with a nice "pulse" of QPF for Chicago/NE IL at 90 hours, relatively speaking.

 

.35" or so here on that run. 

[Geos]

0.42" for ORD on the EURO.

 

Skilling showing the EURO snowfall map again. 3.5-5" over N IL. Looked like a decent spot out by Cyclone for accum's.

[csnavywx]

Quite the struggle for the Canadian. Would be an interesting solution for STL though.

Straddling the mixing line on that run. Throws down around 8-10" of concrete on the north side of the metro, with sleetmageddon about 30 miles south.

[Geos]

I think this image pretty much sums this storm up

 

That picture is the best! lol

Very appropriate. 

[WestMichigan]

12z Euro finally takes away most of the QPF from SW lower MI.  It has been rock steady with approximately 12mm of precip and now it dropped to under 5mm with the 12z run.  All of the other models have been drier and it looks like the Euro has finally joined the crowd.

[Geos]

18z NAM has the low tracking across northern OK now. Big hit for a lot of areas within NE, KS, MO, & IA. -make that western IL too.

[frostfern]

The upper levels are looking more and more constipated. The upper level pattern is too much of a meandering mess such that whatever develops over the plains basically has no where to go so it just stacks up and fizzles. Should have known the models have a long range bias for making things too zonal/progressive.

[TugHillMatt]

12z Euro finally takes away most of the QPF from SW lower MI.  It has been rock steady with approximately 12mm of precip and now it dropped to under 5mm with the 12z run.  All of the other models have been drier and it looks like the Euro has finally joined the crowd.

Hah...tonight and tomorrow look much more exciting than Friday now.

[Geos]

The upper levels are looking more and more constipated. The upper level pattern is too much of a meandering mess such that whatever develops over the plains basically has no where to go so it just stacks up and fizzles. Should have known the models have a long range bias for making things too zonal/progressive.

 

Turtle's post last night hit the nail on the head about why the storm it is probably going to do what it's going to.

[TugHillMatt]

The upper levels are looking more and more constipated. The upper level pattern is too much of a meandering mess such that whatever develops over the plains basically has no where to go so it just stacks up and fizzles. Should have known the models have a long range bias for making things too zonal/progressive.

So we went from a progressive, runny pipeline to one that is all blocked up? yay.

[ILSNOW]

Chicago

 

IT STILL APPEARS THAT THERE WILL BE THE POTENTIAL
FOR A DECENT BURST OF WARM ADVECTION FORCED SNOW THURSDAY AFTERNOON
AND EVENING BEFORE THE MID-LEVEL DRY SLOT OVERRUNS THE LOW LEVEL
OCCLUDED FRONTAL ZONE WHILE IT LIFTS ACROSS THE AREA LATER THURSDAY
NIGHT AND FRIDAY. AS THIS OCCURS...SATURATION IS LOST IN THE -10 C
AND COLDER LEVELS WHICH SUGGEST A LOSS OF ICE CRYSTAL PRODUCTION AND
THE POTENTIAL FOR PRECIP TO CHANGE OVER TO MORE OF A FREEZING
DRIZZLE SITUATION FROM SOUTH TO NORTH THURSDAY NIGHT/EARLY FRIDAY.
SNOWFALL AMOUNTS COULD EASILY END UP IN THE 3-5 INCH RANGE
ESPECIALLY NORTHWEST BEFORE TAPERING OFF TO LIGHT SNOW/FREEZING
DRIZZLE BY FRIDAY MORNING.

[MidwestChaser]

Screw this. I hate it when I put thought into writing something out and then the site is ****ed up.

 

Site is fine. Might be your connection.

[snowstormcanuck]

Screw this. I hate it when I put thought into writing something out and then the site is ****ed up.

 

Are you talking about when sometimes you push post and it just thinks and thinks and thinks? That happens to me sometimes when posting from work. Just copy your text, press F5, paste it and try again. Usually that works for me.