Northern Ohio Obs/Discussion Part 2

[Speedskater]

From late Thursday thru Sunday morning, near Lakewood Park.

Eyeballing, just over 1½ inches reached the ground.

[OHweather]

Topped out at 11.8” storm total here. Thought we had a good chance to crack 12” here, but never got back under any great banding for a period of time yesterday afternoon or evening. 

[NEOH]

Heavier snow than I expected this morning. Large cotton ball flakes are stacking up. 

 

[LakeEffectOH]

Nice!  NWS is forecasting off & on LES this week (2 events to be more accurate), though amounts will be light.  NWS keeps going back and forth with 1-2"/event to less than one inch between point forecasts.

I just hate the term less than one inch or one half inch.  Ugh!

[NEOH]

Picked up another 1"+ last night/this morning. Snow growth must be poor as it is mainly snow pellets. 

[LakeEffectOH]

2 hours ago, NEOH said:

Picked up another 1"+ last night/this morning. Snow growth must be poor as it is mainly snow pellets. 

When I left for work this morning, there was freezing drizzle and snow pellets falling.  Snowing nicely here at work in Solon.

[NEOH]

Lots of ice on the western basin already. Probably closed for business soon. This is a cam from middle bass island looking west-- once this area is ice covered the remainder of the western basin is as well - http://64.246.98.57/CgiStart?page=Single&Language=0'

 

[LakeEffectOH]

31 minutes ago, NEOH said:

Lots of ice on the western basin already. Probably closed for business soon. This is a cam from middle bass island looking west-- once this area is ice covered the remainder of the western basin is as well - http://64.246.98.57/CgiStart?page=Single&Language=0'

 

Yeah, from the looks of the water, I'd imagine that area will be frozen over in a matter of days.

[dta1984]

2 hours ago, NEOH said:

Lots of ice on the western basin already. Probably closed for business soon. This is a cam from middle bass island looking west-- once this area is ice covered the remainder of the western basin is as well - http://64.246.98.57/CgiStart?page=Single&Language=0'

 

Hopefully we can make it to early next week, sounds like another good LE setup with the next cold push. 

[NEOH]

14 hours ago, dta1984 said:

Hopefully we can make it to early next week, sounds like another good LE setup with the next cold push. 

I'm sure there will still be open water in the central basin which will help. Picked up another 1" last night.

[OHweather]

It's been a snowy week...almost 3" here last night into this morning. Ice will be an issue going forward, though shouldn't be too prohibitive to LES yet next week. However, with no warm ups in site (what a thing to say in winter around here) the ice will continue growing the next few weeks. There should be some decent LES next week, though the flow direction is unclear as it may be more westerly. I will be out of town Monday-Friday next week so we'll probably get crushed. 

[dta1984]

3 hours ago, NEOH said:

I'm sure there will still be open water in the central basin which will help. Picked up another 1" last night.

Definitely a great start to January.  I have recorded 21" the first 8 days.  Pretty good stretch that looks to continue, especially after the season total of each of the last 2 winters being around 50"

[vpbob21]

Picked up another 1.2" today.  We're slowly grinding our way to a decent snowpack, looks like around 3" on the ground.

 

Saw something you guys out east aren't going to be happy with, Lake Erie looked like all ice as far out as you could see out from Huron.  That surprised me a little, I didn't think it had really been that cold.

[OHweather]

Got another 3" of fluffy snow yesterday into last night, though it seems to finally be done for now until we get our quick hitting synoptic snow later Friday. I'm at over 20" of snow for the month of January so far (about 22" by my quick math). 

Satellite confirms that ice in the western basin...pretty much completely frozen west of the Islands, with a decent area of ice along the southern shore east of the islands. Most of the central and the entire eastern basins are open, but ice will continue gradually expanding for the foreseeable future. 

[NEOH]

1 hour ago, OHweather said:

Got another 3" of fluffy snow yesterday into last night, though it seems to finally be done for now until we get our quick hitting synoptic snow later Friday. I'm at over 20" of snow for the month of January so far (about 22" by my quick math). 

Satellite confirms that ice in the western basin...pretty much completely frozen west of the Islands, with a decent area of ice along the southern shore east of the islands. Most of the central and the entire eastern basins are open, but ice will continue gradually expanding for the foreseeable future. 

Considering the lack of synoptic snow we've had a good run since 1/1. Didn't pick up much additional yesterday  - 1/2 inch or so. Hopefully the Central basin can hold off on freezing for a few more days... need the wind and waves to stay up otherwise a calm cold night will rapidly increase ice. 

 

[NEOH]

Looked at the radar loop from last night and was surprised to see the heavy snow over parts of Lake and Ashtabula counties. Wonder what caused that pocket of heavy snow…. Looks like 4-6” fell in that area.  

[vpbob21]

Picked up a disappointing 1.5" from last night's system.  Still, it pushed the seasonal total to 8.6" which is more than we got all of last year.

[OHweather]

2 hours ago, NEOH said:

Looked at the radar loop from last night and was surprised to see the heavy snow over parts of Lake and Ashtabula counties. Wonder what caused that pocket of heavy snow…. Looks like 4-6” fell in that area.  

Looking back at mesoanalysis, there are some hints that there was a thermal gradient and some weak convergence at 700mb (which was right in the DGZ), so maybe that was enough, but it was a small feature and not modeled well. There was also some banded snow that got into the Canton and Youngstown areas that produced a few 4-5" reports. Otherwise, pretty meh. 1.4" here.

I had the forecast during the day yesterday and the 12z guidance generally trended down somewhat with the QPF from prior runs, which was ultimately the correct trend. The radar had somewhat of a banded appearance upstream with a lot of sites dropping to 3/4 mile or less visibility so I was apprehensive to lower our snow much (especially since we already had an advisory out for most of the CWA), and we did have those two small areas of banded snow that produced a few inches, but otherwise this was a very boring synoptic snow that came in on the low end of expectations...though it was widespread at least and freshened up the pack a bit. 

[NEOH]

We'll see what today/tonight brings with snowfall. It was encouraging to see the stronger lake bands yesterday with the WSW flow as there is still open water. Anticipating 3-4" around this area.

 

[NEOH]

Picked up 2.7". The dry arctic air and ice probably limited accums. Nice refresher to come tomorrow as well. 

[Floydbuster]

So far this snow doesn't seem to be reaching the ground in some areas of NE Ohio, despite hours of snowing on radar. It looks like the air is very dry, maybe it is impeding the moisture.

[NEOH]

1 hour ago, Floydbuster said:

So far this snow doesn't seem to be reaching the ground in some areas of NE Ohio, despite hours of snowing on radar. It looks like the air is very dry, maybe it is impeding the moisture.

It has been snowing here since 5am... close to 1" already. 

[Floydbuster]

43 minutes ago, NEOH said:

It has been snowing here since 5am... close to 1" already. 

Your area is likely in the strip of highest potential.

I just know the word of mouth with people has been about the “Thursday snow”. You gotta understand, the way things get hyped, anything less than 4+ inches will be seen as “they overhyped it” by social media and non weather folk.

[vpbob21]

Some of these snow showers behind the main area mean business.  Just picked up a quick half inch in about 15 minutes.  Up to about 2" for the whole event.

[NEOH]

1 hour ago, vpbob21 said:

Some of these snow showers behind the main area mean business.  Just picked up a quick half inch in about 15 minutes.  Up to about 2" for the whole event.

Your area seemed to be doing well today. We've had a lull since late morning but snow is pushing in off the lake. Eyeballing 2" so far. 

[NEOH]

Finally a good view of the lake today. Surprised to see so much open water. Feels like Spring out there with sun and temps in the mid-30's. 

 

 

[dta1984]

33 and snow this morning.   Wondering if it will stay snow or if we will flip to rain this morning?  It's actually starting to stick to pavement again.  

Interesting quote from CLE regarding tomorrow - Sun night 

"The Sunday forecast is a bit sneaky with the snow potential across Northeast Ohio, especially near/east of Cleveland. After aa lull in snow tonight, a system developing southeast of ther egion will allow for some synoptic moisture to try and creep back into the forecast area and bring some light snow to the eastern half of the forecast area. Then, a favorable lake effect snow setup will start to emerge Sunday afternoon with NNW flow across Lakes Huron and Erie. This should allow for lake effect snow to push into Northeast Ohio with a couple inches of snowj ust east of the Cleveland metro given the favorable fetch. This wvent will be limited by the lack of deep moisture across the region. However, the sfc-5000 ft layer over the lake will be very unstable with good low level lift, so this has the potential to uptick as a sneaky shallow lake effect event before this events starts to pivot east, as mentioned in the short term" period below."

[NEOH]

1 hour ago, dta1984 said:

33 and snow this morning.   Wondering if it will stay snow or if we will flip to rain this morning?  It's actually starting to stick to pavement again.  

Interesting quote from CLE regarding tomorrow - Sun night 

"The Sunday forecast is a bit sneaky with the snow potential across Northeast Ohio, especially near/east of Cleveland. After aa lull in snow tonight, a system developing southeast of ther egion will allow for some synoptic moisture to try and creep back into the forecast area and bring some light snow to the eastern half of the forecast area. Then, a favorable lake effect snow setup will start to emerge Sunday afternoon with NNW flow across Lakes Huron and Erie. This should allow for lake effect snow to push into Northeast Ohio with a couple inches of snowj ust east of the Cleveland metro given the favorable fetch. This wvent will be limited by the lack of deep moisture across the region. However, the sfc-5000 ft layer over the lake will be very unstable with good low level lift, so this has the potential to uptick as a sneaky shallow lake effect event before this events starts to pivot east, as mentioned in the short term" period below."

I woke up around 6 and it was drizzling… around 8 it flipped to snow and has been light to moderate since. According to the models we will likely stay all snow. There has been a lot of compaction since yesterday which will turn into a glacier. 

[Floydbuster]

Cold Watch for our area here in Ohio. Thankfully, I have noticed some of the models trending slightly less cold than a few days ago. Still negative wind chills, but more -8 than -25, hopefully. It seems to move out by Thursday and Friday, thank goodness.