Northern Ohio Obs/Discussion Part 2

[Cleveland_WX]

its Crazy!. non stop blizzard for two hours hitting at least 5" in two and a half hours. its awesome!

[NEOH]

Wow that band is just awesome. I can barely see across the street. Can't ask for a better fetch across the lake. It looks pretty much stationary for now.

[Cleveland_WX]

53 minutes ago, NEOH said:

Wow that band is just awesome. I can barely see across the street. Can't ask for a better fetch across the lake. It looks pretty much stationary for now.

Still Blizzard Conditions here. Its piling up!

[dta1984]

1 hour ago, NEOH said:

Wow that band is just awesome. I can barely see across the street. Can't ask for a better fetch across the lake. It looks pretty much stationary for now.

Looks great!  Those short term runs turned out to be pretty accurate. 

It looks to be ripping really good by Trent !

[OHweather]

It's actually snowing here

[OHweather]

Already close to 4" here. Flake size isn't stellar but it's puking snow. With the wind the visibility is easily less than 1/4 of a mile. The band should settle farther south...we'll see if it breaks up or maintains some organization through Lorain/Medina and into Summit later this morning...it could reflare over Cuyahoga County again later this afternoon as the winds start backing.

[Trent]

Almost 9" in Lakewood overnight. 

[dta1984]

4" here.  Not snowing right now. 

Wow congrats Trent!

[Buckeye_Weather]

We have 11" here in Shaker! Had to shovel my driveway because the plow guy didn't come. Very cold!!

[OHweather]

Awesome totals!! Pushing 5" here, but the snow is starting to taper. With smaller flakes and strong winds visibility still sucks though. Good agreement on the band trying to re-intensify and shifting north later...and judging by the organization over the western basin it may continue rather strongly into Lorain/Medina/Summit/SW Cuyahoga for at least a few more hours too.

[Trent]

This makes me realize how easy it is for the Buffalo south towns to get those crazy 40"+ amounts. It didn't take that long for 9" to accumulate. You just need one of these bands to stay still for most of the day. 

[OHweather]

2 minutes ago, Trent said:

This makes me realize how easy it is for the Buffalo south towns to get those crazy 40"+ amounts. It didn't take that long for 9" to accumulate. You just need one of these bands to stay still for most of the day. 

That's the hard part

Should be an interesting day to watch how this band behaves and if it holds together. If it does much of Cuyahoga and Geauga (and maybe even me for a time) should get another good burst as the winds start going more W again later and shift the snow back north.

[NEOH]

Congrats all. Nice spread the wealth. Measured 5" so far. The meso models are showing a decent amount of precip to come... the nam handled this event pretty well so far although all were too far north with the band placement. We'll see what today brings. If the nam and wrf models are correct we are looking at .30 to .75.

Even with the strong winds the highest totals have fallen close to the lake.

[dta1984]

46 minutes ago, NEOH said:

Congrats all. Nice spread the wealth. Measured 5" so far. The meso models are showing a decent amount of precip to come... the nam handled this event pretty well so far although all were too far north with the band placement. We'll see what today brings. If the nam and wrf models are correct we are looking at .30 to .75.

Even with the strong winds the highest totals have fallen close to the lake.

Ya hopefully we can cash in when everything swings north....slowly .

There's probably 8" in Solon.  Roads are a mess still.  

Anyone have a link to a good radar?  I can't get the one on wunderground website to work.

[Trent]

1 hour ago, NEOH said:

Even with the strong winds the highest totals have fallen close to the lake.

That's what surprised me the most. Strong winds are terrible for lakeshore lake effect. But, there was a strong Lake Michigan connection with that band, which helped.

I will say that this was certainly a unique and unusual lake effect event for downtown Cleveland and points west. Winds were consistently gusting over 40mph, with peak winds gusts well over 50. In fact, the local storm report has a 76mph gust just offshore downtown. Coupled with temps around 10 and white out thundersnow in excess of 2" per hour, this easily met official blizzard criteria overnight. 

It's too bad the synoptic storm for tomorrow night is looking more and more like rain. We'll probably wash away a lot of snow cover.

[NEOH]

1 hour ago, dta1984 said:

Ya hopefully we can cash in when everything swings north....slowly .

There's probably 8" in Solon.  Roads are a mess still.  

Anyone have a link to a good radar?  I can't get the one on wunderground website to work.

Wow... more in Solon that we got. That's surprising. Here's a radar link -http://weather.cod.edu/satrad/nexrad/index.php?type=CLE-N0Q-0-6

[Speedskater]

I'll go with about 7 inches near Lakewood Park.  But it's a real challenge to measure. Just 400 feet from the lake and morning wind gusts over 45 MPH. All kinds of wind blocks mean lots of drifting. The low temperature was under 12ºF.

[NEOH]

The band has really weakened with little activity anywhere else. Wonder what will happen this afternoon. The dry air is probably doing its dirty work at this point. The  models (nam 3km and HRRR) are bullish on more precip but I'm starting to doubt the amounts.

[OHweather]

30 minutes ago, NEOH said:

The band has really weakened with little activity anywhere else. Wonder what will happen this afternoon. The dry air is probably doing its dirty work at this point. The  models (nam 3km and HRRR) are bullish on more precip but I'm starting to doubt the amounts.

It's snowing good in Bedford Heights, near quarter mile vis, but flakes are small which isn't helping accums. The band should intensify as the fetch improves and as we get a Lake Michigan connection again, but it's moving north faster than modeled so I have no clue where or if it'll lock in anywhere. I think at this point this is all an educated guess at best

[NEOH]

2 minutes ago, OHweather said:

It's snowing good in Bedford Heights, near quarter mile vis, but flakes are small which isn't helping accums. The band should intensify as the fetch improves and as we get a Lake Michigan connection again, but it's moving north faster than modeled so I have no clue where or if it'll lock in anywhere. I think at this point this is all an educated guess at best

Its moving pretty fast to the NE now. Snowing hard in Chagrin Falls. Looking at the visible satellite you can see the bands over the lake pushing to the NE from the SW. Ridging coming in this soon? This band may head all the way up the lakeshore if it continues on this pace.

[OHweather]

14 minutes ago, NEOH said:

Its moving pretty fast to the NE now. Snowing hard in Chagrin Falls. Looking at the visible satellite you can see the bands over the lake pushing to the NE from the SW. Ridging coming in this soon? This band may head all the way up the lakeshore if it continues on this pace.

That's gotta be it. A few models had it sort of jogging NE then back south, but not this much. We will see what happens. Definitely was pleasantly surprised with where the band sat last night, although with a WNW wind that was certainly a possibility. 

[dta1984]

15 minutes ago, NEOH said:

Its moving pretty fast to the NE now. Snowing hard in Chagrin Falls. Looking at the visible satellite you can see the bands over the lake pushing to the NE from the SW. Ridging coming in this soon? This band may head all the way up the lakeshore if it continues on this pace.

Thanks for the radar link!

Ya we need this band to stall where it is now.  It was definitely racing NE fast.  

[NEOH]

20 minutes ago, OHweather said:

That's gotta be it. A few models had it sort of jogging NE then back south, but not this much. We will see what happens. Definitely was pleasantly surprised with where the band sat last night, although with a WNW wind that was certainly a possibility. 

The sun is poking through already. I should probably stop looking at the models but they do show a shift to the NE then the bands settle back south for a good period of time. How far is the question but the movement is starting to stabilize so you never know. This was definitely a unique event. I think the NAM 3km is the winner in terms of accuracy. Although snowfall amounts will be lower than expected given the shifting bands. The big winners were those that were supposed to receive the least amount of snow.

[OHweather]

I was worried about the band affecting a good portion of Cuyahoga, but I thought it'd be more stationary across the Snowbelt and move quicker across Cuyahoga...but it ended up being the other way around. I think with a WNW wind the band can "hang" on the shore west of Cleveland a bit longer because that flow parallels the shore there and maybe locally enhances convergence. Definitely an interesting event...the timing and true blizzard conditions made it close to a worst case for the AM rush in Cleveland. 

 

[NEOH]

56 minutes ago, OHweather said:

I was worried about the band affecting a good portion of Cuyahoga, but I thought it'd be more stationary across the Snowbelt and move quicker across Cuyahoga...but it ended up being the other way around. I think with a WNW wind the band can "hang" on the shore west of Cleveland a bit longer because that flow parallels the shore there and maybe locally enhances convergence. Definitely an interesting event...the timing and true blizzard conditions made it close to a worst case for the AM rush in Cleveland. 

 

The strange thing is that the models all showed slow/little movement with the band, but that didn't happen. Latest model runs have pushed the snowfall further north tonight. Might be game over for us down this way. This was nice high impact event... but much less snowfall than expected due to the bands fast movement.

[Speedskater]

I was out shoveling my driveway and the snow seems very heavy for air temperatures under 18ºF.

[Trent]

Good old lake effect snow ... it's half compacted/drifted away a few hours after it falls. I did get a couple pictures this morning, but it wasn't a very photogenic storm.

 

Taken on a flat surface. There was about a trace - 1/2 inch of snow before the storm started.

 

An unusual lake effect total precipitation jackpot over Lakewood:

 

[dta1984]

It'll be interesting to see what happens tomorrow night and into Saturday.   Does the deep snowpack help us hold the cold air longer?  Looks like cle going with 2-4" overnight tomorrow. 

[dta1984]

In mentor right now and it's snowing pretty good.  I'll see if I can bring this band south a little when I come home ! 

[NEOH]

Hard to believe the cold air will be scoured out by tomorrow given how cold it is... but we never seem to have a problem warming around here. What a mess it is going to be the next 24 hours or so. 3-5" followed by a mix then rain.