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December 5-6, 2013 Winter Storm


mimillman

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I'm sure someone will see snow out of this system, but I think significant questions remain as to who and how much. Looking at some things I'm rather skeptical of anyone seeing more than a few inches, despite several models spitting out a 6"+ corridor anywhere from the mid Ohio Valley to northern IN/OH.

 

post-525-0-43167900-1386086441_thumb.gif

 

Although this is setting up to be a nice gradient pattern, with a SE ridge in place and a nice cross-polar flow dumping very cold air directly into the western US trough, a couple of things may keep this Thursday night-Friday wave from getting too out of control snowfall wise across the region.

 

1. I don't like the closed low shown over James Bay. This creates some confluence over New England and even the eastern lakes which argues against a more amped up solution like the NAM. I know this is more of an overrunning situation than a classic lakes cutter/Apps runner type system and a strong surface low really isn't in play, but I can't help but think the NAM is well done by a fair amount on its amount of precip in the cold sector.

 

2. Lack of snow cover outside of the upper Midwest, the source of the cold being well to our west, and SE ridge may limit how quickly the cold can spread SE to an extent. Some models, including the 0z Euro ensemble mean suggest the main p-type on Friday may be snow as far SE as me in Athens, OH. Due to the factors just mentioned I'm not sure how quickly the cold can spill in...I'd really expect it to get hung up just south of I-70 in Ohio(I know the highway runs E-W and the temperature gradient will be more NW-SE, but it's a close enough approximation for Ohio)...which suggests about the SErn 1/3rd of the state may see mainly rain Friday before ending as light snow/sleet. Farther west, the cold should get to near the Ohio River in IN and possibly into extreme NW KY and all of southern IL...the farther west you are, the less trouble the cold should have making it south.

 

Just to illustrate my point on the NAM probably being well overdone on the NW extent of the precip, the 9z SREF ensembles suggest the NAM is too far NW. The Euro, GFS and Canadian are all farther SE than the NAM (with the GFS leading the way, possibly by a bit too much), and the SREF 24 hour QPF probability maps suggest very low or non-existent chances of getting 0.25"+ of liquid equivalent into northern IN/NW OH/extreme southern MI, even though the NAM gets those values that far NW:

 

post-525-0-98650900-1386087350_thumb.gif

 

So, all in all I'd lean towards the models that are a bit less expansive with the precip shield for Friday (the GFS could well be a bit too supressed with the wave, but the end result may be closer to the GFS than the NAM) and lean towards mainly rain for the SE 1/3rd of OH, a mix for extreme southern IN and northwestern KY and mainly snow in IL (possibly into the PDH area as well). This extrapolates to mainly snow late Thursday night-Friday for St. Louis as well. However, I'd be skeptical of anyone seeing more than 4" of snow in that corridor (with the chances increasing somewhat as you go farther west)...with the corridor for snow being from the southern half of MO east through about the southern halves of IL/IN into a corridor of Ohio (with southern OH likely being mainly rain). A quick glance at thermal profiles suggests there may be a narrow corridor of zr over northwestern KY/far southern IN, but this doesn't look like a huge zr producer. The soundings look like mainly snow/sleet in the cold air from what I glanced at. So, we'll see how this goes!

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I think 3-6" will be the average from this one. Way too warm this week plus ground temps are still warm, it'll be hard to get more than 6 out of it IMHO.. Frankly I think the ice will be the bigger story than the snow, especially from say here in DFW up through Western KY.

 

I think ground temps should be pretty cool by now with all the cold weather up until recently.  Plus rates look decent in the band so I'm not sure how much of a mitigating factor that will be at least in this region. 

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I think ground temps should be pretty cool by now with all the cold weather up until recently.  Plus rates look decent in the band so I'm not sure how much of a mitigating factor that will be at least in this region. 

 

heh, I see my being in the warm climate of DFW is already getting to my snow predictions... Yeah you are probably right for sure

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heh, I see my being in the warm climate of DFW is already getting to my snow predictions... Yeah you are probably right for sure

 

Well, I think amounts over 6" will be the exception rather than the rule but has more to do with the type of system it is.  

 

That map posted above is kinda interesting...that is quite a disparity north to south.

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Well, I think amounts over 6" will be the exception rather than the rule but has more to do with the type of system it is.  

 

That map posted above is kinda interesting...that is quite a disparity north to south.

 

that is an interesting map, but the disparity is not a big shock to me at all really, you never realize how much the winter can be different in such a short distance of space until you move somewhere else. I remember as a kid in Flora the winter was harsh at times yes, but nothing like the cold bitter winds you get in central Illinois.. and i'm sure Chicagoland and Northern Illinois is even harsher in terms of the bitter wind and colder temps...

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Hadn't really been paying attention to the ice potential but it looks like it could be significant.  This seems like a pretty classic setup with the shallow subfreezing air and pronounced warm layer aloft.  The bad news is that it looks like some of the same areas could get hit with both rounds of freezing rain (Fri/Sun) in advance of the cold blast. 

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Just because it made me laugh out loud. See bolded below from IND Discussion:

 

TEMPS...QUITE THE TEMP SWING THROUGH THE PERIOD EXPECTED. WENT
SLIGHTLY ABOVE GUIDANCE FOR LOWS TONIGHT. HIGHS FOR THURSDAY WILL BE
AT DAYBREAK...WITH STEADILY FALLING TEMPS ALL DAY AS COLDER AIR
ARRIVES. TRENDED TOWARDS WARMER MET THURSDAY NIGHT...THEN COOLER MAV
FRIDAY WITH WIDESPREAD PRECIP. ANTICIPATE MOST LOCATIONS WILL REMAIN
BELOW 30 DEGREES ON FRIDAY. UNDERCUT ALL TEMP GUIDANCE FRIDAY NIGHT
AS FRESH SNOWPACK IN MANY LOCALES COMBINED WITH CLEARING SKIES LATE
WILL SUPPORT LOWS APPROACHING 10 DEGREES BY DAYBREAK SATURDAY.
WELCOME TO WINTER.

 

For those not ready... you might as well be! ^_^ 
 

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