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February 4-5th Winter Storm Part 2


Chicago Storm

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DTW has a rock solid base of 12" that this fresh stuff will be falling on. Time to dig in the old record books. Since snow depth records began in 1885...the winters where 18"+ depth was reached...

 

1885-86: 25" (Apr)

1892-93: 18" (Jan)

1899-00: 26" (Mar)

1974-75: 19" (Dec)

1981-82: 18" (Feb)

1998-99: 24" (Jan)

 

So in the last 130 years, only 6 winters has the depth hit 18" or higher. (It is assumed, based on snowfall records, that that number was reached in 1875 and 1881, but snow depth records didnt start until 1885).

Detroit weather history is so odd. Biggest snow depths ever are in March and April.

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Talking to Caplan now about the lake enhancement, he thinks there is too much ice and that the NAM is overdone but I disagree.

 

You're getting a pretty strong signal and better as we get closer.

 

thanks for the reply...it's a bit beyond my scope of detailed knowledge of impacts. 

 

We have seen this a few times with these progressive cutter type systems in December where the lake helped to keep returns very nice on radar for an extended period of time over portions of LOT while areas west of 39 and north of the border struggled to maintain anything ... Nearly all of those situation were vaguely acknowledged by models up until it was almost RR time... clearly the lake was in a different state at that time, so it will be interesting to see how much assistance it can provide

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Parameters aren't great for LES. Could be some minor enhancement but I'm thinking it has more to do with your more southerly location and proximity to the better dynamics.

Good point, dynamics aren't great for LES, but even in marginal setups I've noticed some notable enhancement around the west end of the lake. Guess we will see.

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I'd think marginal delta Ts are the bigger issue.  Besides, the fetch passes over a lot of open water as winds back NNE. 

 

 

Actually delta Ts improve a bit toward the end of the event...not anything crazy but respectable.  Amounts are tricky but don't think it's unreasonable to think that enhancement could tack on 1-3" in the Chicago area. 

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How ridiculous would that be if we could pull off 16”+ depth two separate times?

Actually...I didnt look at it like that. That has never happened before!

 

The closest we came was in Feb 1908 (our old snowiest month on record until January 2014 took over)...the depth hit 15" on Feb 6th, was down to a T on Feb 14th, and back up to 15" on Feb 19th.

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NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE NORTHERN INDIANA  

   

UPDATE  

 

ISSUED AT 837 PM EST MON FEB 3 2014  

 

WILL CONTINUE WITH WINTER STORM WATCH FOR ALL LOCATIONS FOR TUE 18Z-  

WED 18Z. WATER VAPOR INSPECTION THIS EVENING COMPARED WITH 00Z NAM  

INITIALIZATION SEEMS TO SUPPORT A SLIGHTLY MORE AGGRESSIVELY  

DIGGING UPPER TROUGH ACROSS SOUTHWEST CONUS. THIS APPEARS TO HAVE  

VERY SLIGHTLY SUPPRESSED LOW LEVEL SFC REFLECTION TUESDAY  

AFTERNOON/EARLY EVENING...WITH A MORE MATURE SFC LOW DEVELOPING  

OVERNIGHT TUESDAY INTO EARLY WEDNESDAY...ALONG WITH A MORE  

PRONOUNCED TROWAL AS LOW/MID LEVEL BAROCLINIC ZONE PIVOTS ACROSS  

THE REGION. SOME CONCERN OF INITIAL MID LEVEL FGEN BAND INTEGRITY  

TUESDAY AFTERNOON AS IT SHIFTS EASTWARD INTO LOCAL AREA WITH  

INITIALLY VERY DRY LOW LEVEL AIR MASS AND STRENGTHENING EASTERLY  

LOW LEVEL FLOW. A PERIOD OF HEAVY SNOW STILL APPEARS IN STORE ACROSS  

SOUTHEAST THIRD WITH ISENTROPIC SURGE TUESDAY  

NIGHT...TRANSITIONING TO DEFORMATION TROWAL FORCING LATE TUESDAY  

NIGHT/EARLY WEDNESDAY. ONLY CHANGE TO FORECAST AT THIS TIME WILL  

BE TO SLIGHTLY SMEAR GRADIENT ACROSS CENTRAL PORTIONS OF CWA AND  

KEEP MAX AMOUNTS IN THE 5-8 OR 5-9 INCH RANGE ACROSS THE SOUTHEAST  

THIRD. BIG FACTOR IN STORM ACCUMS WILL BE EVOLUTION OF POTENTIAL INITIAL  

MID LEVEL FGEN BAND AND SUBCLOUD MOISTURE CONSIDERATIONS TUESDAY AFTERNOON.  

WITH LIMITED CONFIDENCE IN ACCUMS AT THE BEGINNING THIS  

EVENT...WILL DEFER TO HEADLINE UPGRADE AT THIS TIME.  

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Oh, I think you'll get enhancement. But with delta ts of only 11 or 12 don't expect February 2007 :)

The low level wind field is also weak. Inversion is low (between 925-900mb) so you don't have that classic look for a single band of LE like we saw in mid december. Delta-t's are also not ideal, as you mentioned. 

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Well, that answers that. :lol:

 

Dry air on the NAM is indeed very ugly for us, initially. Something to watch for...that could cut down on total accumulations.

 

 

Yeppers, nasty dry low levels.  The NAM isn't spitting out qpf until the low levels are nearly saturated so just have to hope that it's not underestimating the dry air. 

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12". Its an average from all the previous blowing and drifting. You know the drill, many higher spots, many lower spots, but 12" is a good average.

 

There is 2.4" of water in our 12" depth btw :loon:

Wow. That is a heavy foot of snow! We are having many issues in this area with roofs leaking from the weight of the snow and ice...

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Yeppers, nasty dry low levels.  The NAM isn't spitting out qpf until the low levels are nearly saturated so just have to hope that it's not underestimating the dry air. 

 

East winds of doom suck. But, certainly something that's looking more likely at the start anyways. I think I'll ride my call of 5-7", with potential upside. Final call.  

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Wow. That is a heavy foot of snow! We are having many issues in this area with roofs leaking from the weight of the snow and ice...

Basically what happened...is that once we lost most of our deep snow from early January, we were down to a glacier of about 4" (but at that time it included spots bare and spots closer to 6")...then we kept adding the constant snowfalls throughout January which were always followed by wind which compacted and drifted the snow some more. So while it was a bit aggravating to see the depth suffer a would-be greater rise from all the drifting, it was making the snow more and more firm. Then of course the kicker was this past Saturday when I saw a total of 0.78" of liquid (3.2 snow + heavy rain + 0.6 snow) soak right back into the pack. The end result is about a foot of glacier left. I cannot even begin to imagine the water in some of the snowbanks (some of them go back to December before the historic January snows even had begun!).

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I know the NAM isn't the be all, end all...but we're close enough...so one would expect IWX to upgrade to Warnings. Looks like the big totals in Indiana may run right through their CWA.

Yeah it's still a tough call for just about everywhere at this point. Although 0z NAM/4km NAM both were pretty promising... >.5" of QPF with halfway decent ratios. 

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