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Pre-Christmas Winter Storm Potential


Chicago Storm

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Well... Its going to melt on Thur-Fri and Sat-Sun now.

Parking lot piles.

Myself, I might end up with a snow storm. Or not.

There is no way we lose all this snowpack thu-fri. Temps may not even hit 40 as it stands and we have a solid 8-10" snowpack south of Detroit to the OH border.

Not thur or Fri.... but by Monday morning it will, unless models change.

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850 passes over Gary, would prefer that 50-75 miles further south.

 

It does look like a double-barrel solution is gaining steam.

 

 

Chicago may get significant snow but at this point I doubt it's an all-snow event (by that I literally mean 100% snow).  Front-end cold air is just too marginal and most models have been iffy in that regard even prior to today's runs.  The million dollar question is how long it takes to change over.

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Not thur or Fri.... but by Monday morning it will, unless models change.

If its 33-34 it will be a white rockpack like last march. If it gets warmer then I'd worry about losing it

Who knows....

I'm much happier seeing it hit northern lower than central Ohio.... At least I can trek up there and play in it.

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Waiting on 18z GFS Cobb data... the 12z run is really nasty for YYZ with over 0.7" of freezing rain. Thinking this has the potential to be a healthy mixing event like the 26/2/13 storm unless models continue trending NW with the best thermals. In that case, would be looking at a more widespread ZR threat across ontario if the snowpack and Que high can keep the low level cold air in place.

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sampling weenie alert....while parts of what becomes the SW off the coast of Cali may have been sampled by the network in Alaska....the northern stream energy that eventually tries to meet up after the CONUS trough kicks out of the is currently rounding the trough in the middle of the Pacific...

 

post-5865-0-25412600-1387321873_thumb.gi

 

maybe some partial sampling for the 00Z 20DEC model run....if not there, then not until 00Z 21DEC....and this is all given that that energy maintains the speed/strength that is currently modeled

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Waiting on 18z GFS Cobb data... the 12z run is really nasty for YYZ with over 0.7" of freezing rain. Thinking this has the potential to be a healthy mixing event like the 26/2/13 storm unless models continue trending NW with the best thermals. In that case, would be looking at a more widespread ZR threat across ontario if the snowpack and Que high can keep the low level cold air in place.

 

Models can't trend any more to the NW with this system and have us still get a decent shot of some sort of wintry precipitation.

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Models can't trend any more to the NW with this system and have us still get a decent shot of some sort of wintry precipitation.

Would be very surprised if we didn't see significant amounts of wintry precip given the fact that I have close to a 10" base down. Sure, we will see some melting thursday/friday but its looking less impressive then previously thought. SFC high over QC looks pretty strong which keeps the NE flow ushering in cold SFC temps despite some LHR that could be occurring once the change over to rain occurs. Climatologically, it is harder to sustain long periods of ZR around the GTA so a mixed bag is definitely likely IMO. Any prelim thoughts for the GTA right now?

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Would be very surprised if we didn't see significant amounts of wintry precip given the fact that I have close to a 10" base down. Sure, we will see some melting thursday/friday but its looking less impressive then previously thought. SFC high over QC looks pretty strong which keeps the NE flow ushering in cold SFC temps despite some LHR that could be occurring once the change over to rain occurs. Climatologically, it is harder to sustain long periods of ZR around the GTA so a mixed bag is definitely likely IMO. Any prelim thoughts for the GTA right now?

Warm Air Advection with these kinds of systems cannot be stopped, regardless of a snowpack. 

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Chicago may get significant snow but at this point I doubt it's an all-snow event (by that I literally mean 100% snow). Front-end cold air is just too marginal and most models have been iffy in that regard even prior to today's runs. The million dollar question is how long it takes to change over.

Exactly, and it never seems that these rain/mix to snow ever work out quite like we would wish

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Some were mentioning the warm nose which looks to be strongest around 800mb, at least on the 18z GFS run. Here are 4 fcst soundings for ORD (from 102-120hr) The warm nose is obviously there but as precip moves in and you get evaporative cooling in that layer and with sfc wet bulb temps well below freezing, it looks like mostly if not all snow on this run.

 

97724a26c7200783bdf961c141461217.gif

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Chicago may get significant snow but at this point I doubt it's an all-snow event (by that I literally mean 100% snow). Front-end cold air is just too marginal and most models have been iffy in that regard even prior to today's runs. The million dollar question is how long it takes to change over.

Exactly, and it never seems that these rain/mix to snow ever work out quite like we would wish

There were a couple good examples to the contrary last February (2/7 & 2/26). If the system is strong/dynamic and doesn't take a terrible track for northern IL, we'll flip to snow. The ORD sounding 6z Saturday night from the Euro indicated the warm layer only barely above freezing (0.6C), which in the presence of strong UVV would easily flip to snow. If it's much warmer than that we'll have problems with a more prolonged period of sleet or freezing rain before switching to snow.

Edit: similar point that Tsnow just made. Wet bulbing and dynamic cooling will play a big role in this event given the marginal thermal.profile to start.

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For those looking for some hope that there won't be any drastic NW shifts, I present this.  I pulled these maps from a PDF titled "A Winter Weather Climatology For Northern And Central Indiana."  It shows tracks of surface lows that brought significant snow to the area and you can see that many of them resemble the current projected path of our system.  Keep in mind that these are tracks that gave northern or central Indiana significant snow and tracks that did not are not included on here.

 

 

post-14-0-78419200-1387325991_thumb.png

 

 

post-14-0-10192300-1387325999_thumb.png

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For those looking for some hope that there won't be any drastic NW shifts, I present this.  I pulled these maps from a PDF titled "A Winter Weather Climatology For Northern And Central Indiana."  It shows tracks of surface lows that brought significant snow to the area and you can see that many of them resemble the current projected path of our system.  Keep in mind that these are tracks that gave northern or central Indiana significant snow and tracks that did not are not included on here.

 

 

attachicon.gif1950to1979.png

 

 

attachicon.gif1980to2005.png

Interesting maps. I wonder how many storms with similar tracks did not produce significant snow in these parts?

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For those looking for some hope that there won't be any drastic NW shifts, I present this.  I pulled these maps from a PDF titled "A Winter Weather Climatology For Northern And Central Indiana."  It shows tracks of surface lows that brought significant snow to the area and you can see that many of them resemble the current projected path of our system.  Keep in mind that these are tracks that gave northern or central Indiana significant snow and tracks that did not are not included on here.

 

Sweet find. How about that track with the Nov 27-28, 1980 storm? That's wild. 

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Looks a little drunk.

 

lol

 

I don't want to go to OT, but that storm had three hours of SN/+SN on the morning of 11/27 for LAF. Then light snow on the 28th. Temps never got higher than 36 for the duration. Wouldn't have thought that with a track going overhead, straight from the south. 

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