Northern Ohio Obs/Discussion

[Trent]

So, upstream looks good as NE OH said. Luckily the winds will turn from the NW to NNW by morning so this will shift west some. How much is the question obviously. The three NAM based 0z BUF WRFs like the I-271 corridor into central Geauga County. Web cams show some snow on the highways up there. I'm still waiting down here, patiently. Sitting at 45 with drizzle.

 

BUF models did shift the bands west this morning over 271 and western Geauga. Radar out of Ontario shows the bands developing and starting to get their act together to the south.

 

Could be a fun lunch time on the east side this morning.

 

[NEOH]

CLE still seems bullish on the LES potential today. Given the instability I'm surprised to see such weak returns on the radar... maybe due to shifting winds. Hopefully the qpf Trent posted verifies.

 

Picked up 2-3 inches last night. It's a winter wonderland scene out there.

[dta1984]

Definitely a winter wonderland this morning. Don't know if anybody knew about this link, but a good graphic of cle snowfall projections that gets updated ; http://www.erh.noaa.gov/btv/gis/images/CLE_Snow.png

[michsnowfreak]

Yep.

 

The big lake effect event here on October 23-24th produced thundersnow the evening of the 23rd and then again in the morning and afternoon on 24th. Parts of Cuyahoga County got 8" with that.

 

Then there was another lake effect snow band on November 7th that produced lightning and thunder.

Nice. I have actually seen a lot of thundersnow myself...but not since 2011.

[NEOH]

Definitely a winter wonderland this morning. Don't know if anybody knew about this link, but a good graphic of cle snowfall projections that gets updated ; http://www.erh.noaa.gov/btv/gis/images/CLE_Snow.png

 

Thanks for the link... that's new to me. Seems like the banding just can't get together right now. Hopefully we'll see a flare up later before ridging pushes in.

[Trent]

Lots of dry air. I've been under several radar indicated heavy bursts in Mayfield Heights that have been nothing more than flurries on the ground.

[OHweather]

Lots of dry air. I've been under several radar indicated heavy bursts in Mayfield Heights that have been nothing more than flurries on the ground.

It's weird that this would happen in lake effect...radar overestimating things. I expect it when a synoptic storm moves into dry air but not when the moisture source is the lake.

 

Regardless, not nearly the Huron connection I expected to see when I woke up and lake effect occurring to a bit more of an extent than I expected farther west. It looks like a better Huron connection is trying to form right now but we'll see if it does much.

 

A whopping 0.5" in Athens.

[OHweather]

Still waiting for the evening snow totals to be posted by CLE. My forecast obviously did not work out. The Lake Huron band didn't materialize until the winds were shifting too fast for it to sit and dump anywhere. All in all not a horrible event for mid November, with 1-3" of synoptic snow followed by light to moderate amounts of lake effect. Parts of Ashtabula, Geauga and maybe northern Trumbull already had advisory criteria amounts as of this morning and I'd imagine some of those areas have picked up 2-4" or so since then, especially in central/northern Geauga into Portage/Trumbull where a pretty persistent snow band has been sitting for a few hours.

We may do this again next week (you guys get lake effect, I pray for flurries) if the current models have any clue.

[Trent]

Still waiting for the evening snow totals to be posted by CLE.

Looks like it was mostly a non event. Mayfield heights had nothing more than flurries all day.

At least the synoptic stuff performed.

[OHweather]

Looks like it was mostly a non event. Mayfield heights had nothing more than flurries all day.

At least the synoptic stuff performed.

Yeah, the highest report in Ohio through yesterday evening was 2.4" in Stow. Luckily it's November and not January...not a terrible few weeks considering the time of year.

[NEOH]

Long ways out... but I'm liking the LES snow potential for Saturday night/Sunday. Short duration but with 850 temps down to -15 or so it could be intense with a WNW flow. Ridging looks to push in pretty quickly however.

[NEOH]

Must be a new weenie at CLE.

 

THE MODELS ARE A LITTLE QUICKER MOVING THE SYNOPTIC PRECIP EAST OF THE AREA ON SATURDAY. THE GFS REMAINS THE FASTER OF THE MODELS AS IT ALREADY HAS THE AIR MASS QUITE COLD BY 12Z SATURDAY. REGARDLESS... ALL OF THE MODELS HAVE 850 MB TEMPERATURE DOWN TO -15C OR SO BY SATURDAY EVENING WITH DEEPER MOISTURE IN THE HEART OF THE TROUGH ALOFT. THERE WILL PROBABLY BE A 12-18 HOUR WINDOW WHERE LAKE EFFECT COULD RAGE...ESPECIALLY WHERE THERE IS A LAKE HURON CONNECTION OR
ANY CONNECTION WITH THE UPPER LAKES. FOR NOW WILL JUST TALK ABOUT SNOW SHOWERS...MAINLY IN THE SNOWBELT...WITH RELATIVELY HIGH POPS...AND TRY TO PIN DOWN DETAILS AS WE MOVE THROUGH THE WEEK.

 

[OHweather]

Long ways out... but I'm liking the LES snow potential for Saturday night/Sunday. Short duration but with 850 temps down to -15 or so it could be intense with a WNW flow. Ridging looks to push in pretty quickly however.

Looking at things, I'm not sure how much I like this event. It will certainly be very unstable and the winds will be fairly well aligned, but a 30-40 knot 850mb flow with NW winds suggests good banding may have a hard time forming. The airmass, aside from perhaps when a shortwave moves through Saturday or Saturday night (at least per the current models) will also be somewhat dry. This seems like a setup to produce disorganized snow squalls that drop a general 1-4" with locally more. With a NW flow a Lake Huron fetch could develop into portions of NW PA and if that happens someone there could see warning criteria snows.

I'm more interested in the outside shot at a synoptic snow event near the middle of next week...the Euro and Canadian are close to phasing two shortwaves west of the Apps and winding up a storm that we would be on the cold side of. I'll be home next week on break so we'll see.

[carumba]

Looking at things, I'm not sure how much I like this event. It will certainly be very unstable and the winds will be fairly well aligned, but a 30-40 knot 850mb flow with NW winds suggests good banding may have a hard time forming. The airmass, aside from perhaps when a shortwave moves through Saturday or Saturday night (at least per the current models) will also be somewhat dry. This seems like a setup to produce disorganized snow squalls that drop a general 1-4" with locally more. With a NW flow a Lake Huron fetch could develop into portions of NW PA and if that happens someone there could see warning criteria snows.

I'm more interested in the outside shot at a synoptic snow event near the middle of next week...the Euro and Canadian are close to phasing two shortwaves west of the Apps and winding up a storm that we would be on the cold side of. I'll be home next week on break so we'll see.

 

I've learned with LES that you get what you get. You can only predict so much at this scale and one person's bullseye is another's flameout.

 

I'll take it whatever it is, it's always fun anticipating and trying to estimate what will happen.

[Trent]

Looking at things, I'm not sure how much I like this event. It will certainly be very unstable and the winds will be fairly well aligned, but a 30-40 knot 850mb flow with NW winds suggests good banding may have a hard time forming. The airmass, aside from perhaps when a shortwave moves through Saturday or Saturday night (at least per the current models) will also be somewhat dry. This seems like a setup to produce disorganized snow squalls that drop a general 1-4" with locally more. With a NW flow a Lake Huron fetch could develop into portions of NW PA and if that happens someone there could see warning criteria snows.

I'm more interested in the outside shot at a synoptic snow event near the middle of next week...the Euro and Canadian are close to phasing two shortwaves west of the Apps and winding up a storm that we would be on the cold side of. I'll be home next week on break so we'll see.

Yeah, I'm not too excited for anything major, but will be nice to see the ground coated again ... the first time where there aren't leaves on the trees. 

 

 

I've learned with LES that you get what you get. You can only predict so much at this scale and one person's bullseye is another's flameout.

 

I'll take it whatever it is, it's always fun anticipating and trying to estimate what will happen.

 

Tend to agree.

 

But, considering this is only November 19th and we're looking at potentially the 4th measurable snowfall of the season for spots, it's a welcome change from the string of late start winters.

[OHweather]

I've learned with LES that you get what you get. You can only predict so much at this scale and one person's bullseye is another's flameout.

 

I'll take it whatever it is, it's always fun anticipating and trying to estimate what will happen.

I certainly agree you take what you get, although getting nailed is certainly a beautiful thing.

 

And NEOH, the met who wrote that portion of the AFD today is the met who issued the blizzard warning last Christmas (yes, I know, scary that I remember that). I think he's on the younger side...he's certainly not one of the older ones I can't stand although he has been there for several years now.

[NEOH]

I certainly agree you take what you get, although getting nailed is certainly a beautiful thing.

 

And NEOH, the met who wrote that portion of the AFD today is the met who issued the blizzard warning last Christmas (yes, I know, scary that I remember that). I think he's on the younger side...he's certainly not one of the older ones I can't stand although he has been there for several years now.

Good point about the dry air... Biggest caveot IMO with les events. I'll take ample moisture over lake/air temp differential any time. Keep the flow under 300 and the longer fetch would help. As Trent mentioned, we've had a great start to the early winter season, something we havent't had in a long time.

[OHweather]

Good point about the dry air... Biggest caveot IMO with les events. I'll take ample moisture over lake/air temp differential any time. Keep the flow under 300 and the longer fetch would help. As Trent mentioned, we've had a great start to the early winter season, something we havent't had in a long time.

I certainly agree with good moisture and marginal temperature differentials being a better setup than dry air and good temperature differentials. Good moisture events tend to spread the wealth a little better too it seems.

 

I still think there may be something to a synoptic snow threat next week. The 0z GFS shows a potent polar jet shortwave phasing with a slow moving STJ piece of energy essentially over our heads next Tuesday with accumulating snows in WV into central PA and interior New England...the 0z Canadian shows phasing in just about the same location with accumulating snows in just about the same spot on Thursday...the 0z Euro, which I'll post the 24 hourly frames of below, ALMOST phases two pieces of energy to our west Monday night, and ends up phasing the next shortwave with the STJ energy just about over our heads 24 hours later and dumps a fair amount of snow from southern OH through much of PA into upstate NY and New England. It wouldn't take much of a shift in either the STJ energy or polar jet energy to get more favorable phasing for us in NE OH, and thus far the GFS/Canadian has gone from not sniffing a phase to showing one just a bit too late for us, while the Euro has been consistently close for a few runs now.

Is a winter storm likely on Wednesday in Northern OH, no, but the models are close right now. Regardless, it looks to get cold by Wednesday-Thursday of next week, so maybe we'll get some lake effect while I'm in town.

 

144 hours:

 

168 hours:

[OHweather]

CLE has gone ahead and issued a lake effect snow watch for Ashtabula into NW PA, with BUF issuing a watch for Chautauqua County to give us about a 3 county wide watch, mainly downwind of Lake Huron. It will be very unstable so when a front swings through Saturday evening everyone could see a nice burst of snow, but I'm still not terribly optimistic for more than a local 4" in much of OH however due to a short fetch and dry air. If Ashtabula can cash in on Huron moisture they'll see more.

 

EDIT: CLE actually put out a pretty decent AFD this afternoon:

THE GREATEST PUSH OF COLD AIR COMES BEHIND A SECONDARY FRONT
SATURDAY AFTERNOON. THIS IS THE ONE THAT WILL GIVE THE SNOWBELT IN
PARTICULAR THE MOST TROUBLE. HAVE ALREADY ISSUED A LAKE EFFECT
SNOW ADVISORY FOR NW PA AND FAR NE OH. SEVERAL FACTORS LED TO THIS
DECISION. H8 TEMPS DROP TO -16C TO -18C BEHIND SATURDAYS FRONT
THEREFORE PROVIDING PLENTY OF LAKE GENERATED INSTABILITY. WITH THE
NORTHWEST BOUNDARY LAYER FLOW EXPECTED FOR AN 18 TO POSSIBLY A 24
PERIOD A CONNECTION TO LAKE HURON WOULD OCCUR. THIS POINTS THE
BEST SNOWFALL FOR THE WATCH COUNTIES. ADDING TERRAIN TO THE
PICTURE WOULD LIKELY ALLOW FOR ACCUMULATIONS OF GREATER THAN 6
INCHES. AN INITIAL THOUGHT WOULD BE AMOUNTS OF 6 TO 10
INCHES...LESSER AMOUNTS RIGHT NEAR THE LAKESHORE AND THE HIGHER
AMOUNTS ACROSS THE HIGHER TERRAIN. THE LIMITING FACTOR WOULD BE
THE AVAILABLE SYNOPTIC MOISTURE. THE BEST SYNOPTIC MOISTURE IS
ONLY AROUND FOR A LIMITED TIME AND IS MAINLY CONFINED TO OUR
NORTHEAST AS IT HAS BEEN FORECAST OVER THE LAST SEVERAL RUNS.
COULD SEE LAKE EFFECT SNOW ADVISORIES ISSUED DOWN THE ROAD FOR
NEIGHBORING PRIMARY SNOWBELT COUNTIES. IT WILL BE BREEZY SATURDAY
AFTERNOON AND NIGHT.

ELSEWHERE ON SATURDAY AFTERNOON WITH THE ARRIVAL OF THE SECOND
COLD FRONT...AT LEAST SCATTERED SNOW SHOWERS ARE EXPECTED WITH
LIGHT SNOW ACCUMULATIONS POSSIBLE. FALLING TEMPERATURES FOR THE
AFTERNOON. IN THE END TEMPERATURES SATURDAY NIGHT WILL DROP INTO
THE TEENS...WITH RECOVERY ONLY TO THE LOWER OR MID 20S ON SUNDAY.
BRRR.

LAKE EFFECT SNOW WILL CONTINUE THROUGH THE DAY SUNDAY...WITH THE
SLOW TAPERING PROCESS BEGINNING SUNDAY NIGHT WITH

[NEOH]

CLE has gone ahead and issued a lake effect snow watch for Ashtabula into NW PA, with BUF issuing a watch for Chautauqua County to give us about a 3 county wide watch, mainly downwind of Lake Huron. It will be very unstable so when a front swings through Saturday evening everyone could see a nice burst of snow, but I'm still not terribly optimistic for more than a local 4" in much of OH however due to a short fetch and dry air. If Ashtabula can cash in on Huron moisture they'll see more.

 

 

4" seems like a good call at this point. I'm not overly optimistic for this event for same reasons you mentioned -- dry air, short fetch and short duration. We should see a good burst with the arctic front at least.

[OHweather]

Here's what I'm going with...

 

With a decent secondary trough/cold front moving through tomorrow afternoon there could be some passing snow showers for everyone, with a nice burst of accumulating snow (1-2”?) in the primary Snowbelt. After that the winds veer to the NNW rather quickly and we lose synoptic moisture, generally setting up a weaker multi-band lake effect scenario. With good instability there may be some locally heavier squalls but I’m not expecting it to be terribly consistent outside of any possible Lake Huron connection, which will reside in NW PA and perhaps affect Ashtabula County at times. Given a good 24+ hour of snow and the possibility of heavy snow rates beneath any Huron connection that may develop did bring 6-10” amounts into eastern inland Ashtabula. Someone could see up to a foot if there is a persistent Huron band but the best chance of that is in NW PA.

 

For the rest of the primary Snowbelt, figured a quick 1-2” burst Saturday afternoon-evening followed by an extended period of NW-NNW flow snow showers. Given dry air and a short fetch these shouldn’t be terribly impressive but may drop another 1 to locally 4” Saturday night into Sunday, with the most snow being in the higher terrain. As the winds go more WNW Sunday night this may cause one last flare-up that could drop an additional inch or two in the primary Snowbelt. If someone gets really lucky they may see 6 or 7” but given the expected general lack of organized banding outside of a possible Huron connection figured 3-6” would cover things. Elsewhere with a NNW flow the secondary Snowbelt should see up to an inch with the frontal passage tomorrow afternoon followed by off and on snow showers that accumulate locally up to 3” or so. Again if someone gets really lucky there may be an isolated 4” spot in southern Cuyahoga/northern Medina/northern Summit but it would probably be really localized so 1-3” should cover things there.

 

Because there are signs that a well-organized band may occur from Lake Superior to Lake Michigan towards the Grand Traverse Bay area and the flow would bring any leftover moisture from that band towards the Detroit metro and then towards areas west of Cleveland I did draw in 1-3” out there. I’m not expecting anything organized but with a dry airmass and short fetch over Lake Erie any additional moisture will help and thus I painted in light accumulations where the flow suggests this is most likely to occur.

 

[dta1984]

Good write up OHweather.  Looks like CLE agrees with you.  A fresh LES watch was just issued for geauga county.  

 

What's your take on next week at this point?  Seems like there is a chance of snow Tues-Wed night.

[OHweather]

Good write up OHweather.  Looks like CLE agrees with you.  A fresh LES watch was just issued for geauga county.  

 

What's your take on next week at this point?  Seems like there is a chance of snow Tues-Wed night.

Thanks dta. I'm personally not sold on anyone in Geauga or especially Lake Counties seeing warning criteria snows (6"+/12 hours or 8"+/24 hours) so we'll see if CLE does bump Lake/Geauga up to a warning or ends up going with an advisory.

As for next week, I still think we can't write it off. The Canadian and Euro are in good agreement in partially phasing a polar jet shortwave with the sub-tropical jet cut-off somewhere around Tuesday and throwing some moisture back towards eastern OH. The Canadian verbatim might get light accumulations as far west as Cleveland. Like I mentioned earlier this week it's close so although the pattern is progressive and I'm leaning against a full on phase, it's too close to rule out. Realistically areas mainly east of a Millersburg-Cleveland line stand a half decent chance at a light synoptic snow event Tuesday-Wednesday, with a lesser chance for perhaps a few inches. We'll see and it's still worth watching. If not maybe some lake effect snow showers dancing around...a few lake effect snow showers that add up to an inch would beat everything I've seen in Athens thus far this fall so I'm optimistic for at least that.

 

I will say that several of the GFS ensemble members remain much farther west/stronger with the low than the op, and given it looks like the 0z GFS might be blowing up a low well ahead of where the 500mb maps suggest it should happen due to convective feedback issues I'd be skeptical of such a suppressed/strung out solution as the 0z GFS showed.

 

Edit to add: A few of these solutions would be interesting for eastern OH:

 

[Trent]

High-Res models for today aren't too promising unless you're at the PA border.

 

But there's been some hint of a band near Cleveland or Lorain with a loose connection up to Superior that could provide a coating.

 

This graph should tumble this week:

 

[Thunder Road]

I'm not too familiar with Lake Erie LES climo... does the heavy stuff usually make it down to I-80 east of Cleveland?  I'm in Toledo this morning heading back to Philly for Thanksgiving, and I don't want to get caught in a band.  

 

The HRRR says it's all light and showery through at least 0z, but the HRRR also sucked with the Lake Michigan LES a week and a half ago, so...

[Trent]

I'm not too familiar with Lake Erie LES climo... does the heavy stuff usually make it down to I-80 east of Cleveland?  I'm in Toledo this morning heading back to Philly for Thanksgiving, and I don't want to get caught in a band.  

 

The HRRR says it's all light and showery through at least 0z, but the HRRR also sucked with the Lake Michigan LES a week and a half ago, so...

 

You'll be good today. Any bands that develop will be later this afternoon and effect areas of I-90 between Cleveland and Buffalo. This kind of set-up will leave I-80/76 between Cleveland and Pittsburgh mostly snow free.

[OHweather]

Looks like you guys are seeing some decent bursts with the arctic front this afternoon. 12z Euro gets 3" to Cleveland and 6" into far eastern Ohio with the Tuesday-Wednesday FYI.

[dta1984]

Pretty good burst of snow the past hour. Ground is quickly getting covered

[NEOH]

Picked up around an inch so far. Looks like those upstream connections to superior or Michigan are happening... Areas on the near west and south side will probably get a surprise inch or two. Would love to have this setup with a wow flow and more moisture of course.

[OHweather]

Hey, how about some 0z Euro text data for this week?

 

CLE:

TUE 18Z 26-NOV   0.6    -4.8    1019      77      98    0.01     553     538    WED 00Z 27-NOV  -0.9    -3.6    1014      91      97    0.07     551     540    WED 06Z 27-NOV   0.0    -5.8    1009      91      97    0.17     547     539    WED 12Z 27-NOV   0.6    -7.8    1007      84      35    0.07     541     535    WED 18Z 27-NOV   0.4    -7.7    1006      79      46    0.03     536     531    THU 00Z 28-NOV  -0.7    -8.8    1008      85      96    0.03     531     524    THU 06Z 28-NOV  -2.6   -12.5    1013      83      93    0.05     529     519    THU 12Z 28-NOV  -4.9   -14.7    1020      76      38    0.03     536     520    

CAK:

TUE 06Z 26-NOV  -1.2    -5.2    1024      70      97    0.04     556     538    TUE 12Z 26-NOV  -1.5    -4.5    1023      85      59    0.01     557     539    TUE 18Z 26-NOV   0.1    -3.8    1019      73      99    0.02     555     540    WED 00Z 27-NOV  -1.3    -1.6    1014      95      99    0.19     554     543    WED 06Z 27-NOV  -1.3    -3.4    1009      96      97    0.30     549     542    WED 12Z 27-NOV  -0.3    -6.5    1006      91      89    0.09     543     538    WED 18Z 27-NOV   0.3    -7.8    1005      80      52    0.04     537     533    THU 00Z 28-NOV  -1.7    -8.6    1007      88      81    0.05     531     525    THU 06Z 28-NOV  -3.9   -11.8    1012      85      85    0.05     529     519    THU 12Z 28-NOV  -7.2   -14.1    1021      83      51    0.02     535     519   

And YNG:

TUE 06Z 26-NOV  -1.3    -6.0    1023      69      98    0.04     555     537    TUE 12Z 26-NOV  -1.9    -4.8    1023      85      44    0.01     556     538    TUE 18Z 26-NOV   0.2    -4.4    1020      75      99    0.01     555     539    WED 00Z 27-NOV  -1.2    -1.5    1014      95      98    0.18     554     543    WED 06Z 27-NOV  -0.9    -2.8    1008      97      95    0.46     550     543    WED 12Z 27-NOV   0.1    -5.8    1005      94      96    0.08     544     540    WED 18Z 27-NOV   1.1    -7.4    1003      76      66    0.06     538     536    THU 00Z 28-NOV  -0.5    -7.7    1005      88      80    0.03     532     528    THU 06Z 28-NOV  -3.7   -11.6    1010      84      86    0.04     529     521    THU 12Z 28-NOV  -5.0   -13.1    1018      84      82    0.04     533     519    THU 18Z 28-NOV  -4.1   -14.7    1025      59       4    0.01     544     524