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GHD III possible Winter Storm February 1st-3rd


Thundersnow12

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Still in the timeframe where pretty significant track changes can occur but really don't have high hopes for this one imby in terms of big snowstorm. Think it makes sense to set expectations very low and just hope for a more wintry front end thump.

 

Excitement level was definitely higher this time yesterday.

 

Would like to see the models go back to the 0z runs last night (GEM and GFS).

 

We need like a 1040 high just north of Lake of the Woods.

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Still in the timeframe where pretty significant track changes can occur but really don't have high hopes for this one imby in terms of big snowstorm. Think it makes sense to set expectations very low and just hope for a more wintry front end thump.

 

Yeah, I'm pretty much prepared for primarily rain followed by dry slot, and perhaps some wrap around flurries/snow showers.  Best case scenario at this point looks to be a front end dump before a change to rain, but that seems pretty unusual for this area.  The front end dumps usually tend to take place northeast of here.  

 

Still a long ways to go, but my gut feeling has been that the northwest half of Iowa will cash in yet again.

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Yeah, I'm pretty much prepared for primarily rain followed by dry slot, and perhaps some wrap around flurries/snow showers. Best case scenario at this point looks to be a front end dump before a change to rain, but that seems pretty unusual for this area. The front end dumps usually tend to take place northeast of here.

Still a long ways to go, but my gut feeling has been that the northwest half of Iowa will cash in yet again.

Honestly I can't remember the last time I had a good front end dump of snow before changing to rain. Not talking about storms that are mostly snow and then end as light rain/drizzle but storms where there's a good amount of both. Dec 28 almost pulled it off here but the front end dump was sleet.
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People throwing in the towel a little prematurely if you ask me. 120hrs to go.

This. Can't live and die by operational runs at this point, tons of time for significant changes. The storm has been on the models for an incredibly long time as these things go, so it feels much closer to the event than it really is.
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Honestly I can't remember the last time I had a good front end dump of snow before changing to rain. Not talking about storms that are mostly snow and then end as light rain/drizzle but storms where there's a good amount of both. Dec 28 almost pulled it off here but the front end dump was sleet.

Yeah I can't remember one either off the top of my head.  We've had many brief front end snows that quickly changed over to rain or mix with minor accums, but substantial front end thumps are hard to come by in this area.  Colder air usually gets dislodged a little quicker here southwest of the lakes with a cutter.  

 

People throwing in the towel a little prematurely if you ask me. 120hrs to go.

 

I definitely haven't thrown in the towel, but I'm not overly excited about heavy snow prospects at this point.  Overall the theme has been for the main corridor of heavy snow to line up over the northwest half of IA up into WI.  Some op runs, and some various ensemble members have shown some solutions southeast of that, but many of the main op runs have displaced the heaviest snow well northwest of this area up to this point.  

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The problem is still it going negatively tilted early.

Look at 540 height contour in the trof..already negatively tilted...if we could get it to stay more N/S and neutral longer then the sfc low would be able to gain some longitude before cutting north.

 

Yeah I see that.

GGEM was more N/S

 

gem_z500a_us_20.png

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Wasn't thinking the EURO was going to budge that much. It was probably that Hudson Bay low that did it.

 

Looks like the heavy snow will be out by you on the EURO, Cyclone.

ecmwf_T850_us_7.png

 

Nice.  Good step in the right direction.

 

I may tend to be a little pessimistic (even more than usual lol) when it comes to these southwest flow systems, or cutters.  I've been burnt too many times in situations where we were modeled to be safely in the subfreezing air through the column, only to have an over-achieving WCB push back against the colder air enough to create precip type issues.  Unless this area is modeled to be deep into the subfreezing region I'll always remain a bit skeptical/conservative when it comes to snowfall amounts.  

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This run of the Euro verbatim does have a good front end thump over northern IL north of I-80 arriving after 06z Tuesday. 850s and 925 mb temps start cold enough and there is northeast low level flow to try to hold off the warming some for a time. Also very strong WAA gets the precip surging in quicker than on the GFS. Based off 925 mb level taking longer to warm, snow would go to sleet/mix then rain before dryslotting. This might be a more realistic scenario to get any decent accums in nrn IL.

Edit: Unless magnitude of WAA forces a quicker p-type change, as cyclone mentioned. In our favor is that surface flow stays drier northeasterly and even 850 mb winds stay easterly til mid day.

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I think model support for a western cut (approx over NE IL) is excellent at this point, the GEFS slp mean (for many runs in a row) and the Euro are in agreement. Looking at h5 between 84-120 hrs you can really see how the pac jet pushes the trough east causing heights over the plains to rise and preventing the baroclinic zone from sagging in wake of the initial low.

gfs_namer_090_500_vort_ht.gif

 

gfs_namer_090_200_wnd_ht.gif

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