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February 2014 General Discussion


snowlover2

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yesterday's snow brought the season total at ORD to 61", which is 39" above normal YTD. My father-in-law in the Twin Cities has used his snow blower twice this winter.....only 2 events over 5" each.  Simply amazing. 

I'll be honest and say i've rarely even needed a shovel this winter here..a broom has worked for the most part.  I think we had one deeper snow that required the shovel.  The last snow i just left...i'm tired and its too cold out to shovel..i'll just drive over! 

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Nice description of what's going on in your area, Bo!

 

Here wildlife is starting to come out now. More birds species are coming north; including the Robin's which never left after appearing last weekend, and I've been seeing more squirrel activity. 

 

Hit 5° this morning. Clouds staying around most of the night. Took some pictures of the snow pack currently in place. Probably the deepest it will get from here on out.

 

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Impressive snow pack...  Looks way better then what we have around here. 

 

Nice day overall...sitting at 10.2F

 

Can't wait until more mild air floods in and i can clear the driveway/clean out the garage (disgusting from the car parked in there).

 

Rabbit damage has been horrible this year...they got quite a few of my trees.  Anything not protected well is open season.  They must get up on their hind legs to get at some of the branches.  They use the snow to their advantage to reach higher limbs.

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Nice pics Geos. I can tell from your first pic your snow was more fluffy than ours (ours was 20-1 ratio).

 

Took a ton of pics today...keep thinking "this is the peak, need to photograph it" lol, and we keep getting more.

 

Snapped a pic while doing a core sample. For those who dont know, to do a core sample (how much water in the snowpack) you take the average depth (hard to do this year, but calling it a very dense 18" right now) and stick the rain gauge in it like a cookie cutter, then melt it and see how much water is in it. With the immense blowing and drifting this winter, no measurment will be precise, but estimates are that the water content in SE MI's snowpack ranges from 2.5-4" right now. Thats up north snowbelt stuff.

 

While the snow depth of 18" is very impressive in itself for this area, its an understatement to the actual landscape because of the amount of snowbanks and piles. They just keep growing and growing as the general weight of the snowpack compresses a bit. For instance...we first hit 17" snow depth on Jan 6th....fast forward to February 2nd..the snow depth was 12", but the snowbanks made the snow look deeper than it did January 6th. Now go to February 5th, our snow depth hit 20", but today the depth at 18" looks more impressive than it did February 5th.

 

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Its not even so much height (but yeah, they are very high), but the shear amount of space the snow piles in parking lots take up..I have never seen it like that here before.

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8 more......

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Nice stats on snow cover from NWS MKE:

 

A couple months of consecutive snow cover

Cold and snow go together.  As we slice and dice the data for this cold winter, we also notice that we are moving up the ranking charts on consecutive days with 1" or more of snow cover at both Madison and Milwaukee this winter.

As of February 9th, here are the rankings:

Milwaukee

  • 63 consecutive days since December 9th 2013
  • This is the 9th longest streak ever
  • The record is 112 days in 1978-1979
  • This is the longest streak since 76 days in 2000-2001
  •  
  • The average number of days with snow cover per season is 62 (not necessarily consecutive days)
  • The 1981-2010 Climatology (30 year mean) is 59 days with snow cover per season
  • The record number of days with snow cover in a season is 117 in 1978-1979
  • The record fewest number of days is 17 in 1953-1954

Madison

  • 63 consecutive days since December 9th 2013
  • This is tied for 31st longest streak
  • The record is 118 days in 1978-1979
  • There have been 5 longer streaks than the current streak since 2000
  • 110 consecutive days occurred during 2007-2008
  •  
  • The average number of days with snow cover per season is 61 (not necessarily consecutive days)
  • The 1981-2010 Climatology (30 year mean) is 76 days with snow cover per season
  • The record number of days with snow cover in a season is 125 in 1978-1979
  • The record fewest number of days is 23 in 1953-1954
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More stats from NWS MKE - for # of days at or below 0F:

 

Update on zero or below zero days this winter (updated 600 am Feb9)

 By many measures this has been one of the colder winters in southern Wisconsin in the past 30 years.

So far this 2013-2014 winter season (through Feb 9th), the following are the total number of days with low temperatures of zero or below:

Milwaukee:  22 days

  • This is the most days at or below zero since 23 days in the 1981-1982 winter season.
  • This ties for the 18th most in a season.   
  • The normal for a season based on 1981-2010 climatology is 8 days per season
  • The average since records began in 1871 is 12 days per season
  • The record for most days is 41 in 1884-1885;  the record for least days is zero in 2009-2010 (the lowest temperature was +1F)
  • Current forecasts call for 2 more zero or below days in the next week.  This would bring the season total to 24, which would be the most since 28 days during the 1976-1977 winter.  If that occurs then we would move up to 13th place.

Madison:  32 days

  • This is the most days at or below zero since 32 days in the 1981-1982 winter season
  • This ties for the 23rd most in a season.
  • The normal for a season based on 1981-2010 climatology is 17 days per season
  • The average since records began in 1869 is 20 days per season
  • The record for most days is 51 in 1884-1885;  the record for least days is 2 in 1997-1998
  • Current forecasts call for 2 more zero or below days in the next week.  This would bring the season total to 34, which would be the most since 34 days in 1985-1986.  If that occurs then we would move up to a tie for 18th place.
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Some photos on my drive from LAF to IKK this morning. These are from route 52 (between route 1 and 45) in Illinois. Impressive deep winter look from door to door. At times, it felt like I was driving through a tunnel of snow...where it was piled the deepest. 

 

 

 

 

My parent's patio has a snow thrower enhanced 36" snow depth. Kinda cool. 

 

 

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NWS shows -13F tonite...-19F tomorrow nite.. yum!

 

Winter is on its last breath, however... NAEFS has some changes in store:

http://collaboration.cmc.ec.gc.ca/cmc/ensemble/naefs/semaine2/images/2014020900_054@007_E1_north@america_I_NAEFS@TEMPERATURE_anomaly@probability@combined@week2_198.png

I don't think winter is over after mid-month. It seems like more cold air might come in after the 24th.

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Great pics Snow Freak and Chicago Wx! Like the mall parking lot mounds almost interesting to see how long those last into spring.

The road conditions in Indiana look about the same as the back roads around here. Some snow and ice, but nothing substantial.

 

Yeah I would say 10" of the snow pack here is greater than 15:1, with the bottom 4" less than 10:1 (more like < 5:1). Wish I had the proper tool to figure out the water equivalent.

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Nice cold sunny day today.  Pic of the boy out having fun in the snow.

Great pics everyone.

If my kid had that I know the police would be here!  Nice!

 

Winter isn't done, but i think the extreme cold might be over.  NAEFS/EURO both show at least a "normal" pattern for the extended.  Day 7 Euro torches parts of the plains and gets the 0C line north of here finally.

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Thanks to everyone for posting their pics. I noticed how sunny it was today in Chicagowx's pictures. Crisp blue sky. It stayed fairly cloudy here all day, with just peeks of sun.

 

Hey Josh, did Cromartie move to Detroit?

 

 

I see some good pics of mall parking lots. I snagged a couple myself in Fort Wayne.

 

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Great pictures Hm8. Reminds me of layered sedimentary rock. I bet there's about 15 layers there.

 

My driveway is extremely clean to. I do what Snow Freak does by shoveling right after a snowfall is done instead of driving over it. 

 

---

So far down to 10° at 7pm.

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Aurora down to -8 already...that place radiates like crazy.

 

EDIT:  winds are still NW at 9 mph in Aurora...imagine what will happen when the winds die down.  This may have a better chance of occurring tomorrow night.

 

NORTHEAST ILLINOIS  
 
CITY SKY/WX TMP DP RH WIND PRES REMARKS
 
CHICAGO-OHARE CLEAR 9 -1 64 W8 30.23R WCI -3  
CHICAGO-MIDWAY PTCLDY 10 3 73 W5 30.25R WCI 2  
AURORA N/A -8 -12 83 NW9 30.26R FOG WCI -25  
LANSING* PTCLDY 9 3 76 W6 30.25R WCI -1  
JOLIET* PTCLDY 5 0 79 W5 30.29R WCI -4  
WAUKEGAN CLEAR 7 2 80 W5 30.23R WCI -2  
DUPAGE AIRPORT PTCLDY 1 -3 83 W8 30.24R FOG WCI -13  
KANKAKEE* MOCLDY 2 -2 83 W6 30.28S WCI -9  
WHEELING CLEAR 10 2 69 W6 30.25R WCI 0  
MORRIS* PTCLDY 2 -6 71 W10 30.27S WCI -14  
ROMEOVILLE* PTCLDY 2 -2 85 NW10 30.26R WCI -14  
NORTHERLY ISL N/A 12 4 70 W7 N/A WCI 2 

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