December 2016 General Discussion

[Natester]

There is something that I'm worrying about.  December 2005 was super cold and snowy but when late December 2005 and onward onto January and beyond, the winter turned into a complete joke (warm and wet).  I hope this isn't the case this time.

[michsnowfreak]

Snow squalls in SE MI today. Every half mile it seemed to vary. Just a very light dusting at work in Farmington Hills, a healthier dusting at DTW (0.3") and a nice thick coating in Wyandotte (0.8"). Blustery winter evening.

 

[Indystorm]

Well... I had my first flurries of the season this morning here just ne of Indpls and now I have a nice dusting on my driveway and sidewalk.  Welcome to winter in central IN.

[n1vek]

2 minutes ago, michsnowfreak said:

Snow squalls in SE MI today. Every half mile it seemed to vary. Just a very light dusting at work in Farmington Hills, a healthier dusting at DTW (0.3") and a nice thick coating in Wyandotte (0.8"). Blustery winter evening.

Nice photo, as always. Sitting here with nearly bare grass in Royal Oak. Hoping some of these squalls that just spun up can whiten things. 

In all honesty my primary concern is getting some frost into the first few inches of soil before the main event this weekend.
I am glad we have several days to cool soil temps before the snow arrives. 

[nwohweather]

Early December sun angle isn't high

Yeah I was about to say I work nights and would love to see this sun angle. Haha right now daylight is some kind of rumor

[Chicago Storm]

Have had flurries here since last night.

The over 24hr period of non-stop flurries has finally come to an end.

[beavis1729]

From LOT below.  Chicago has only had one sub-zero high temp prior to December 23 (high of -2F on 12/15/1901).  Also, the high temp was 3F on 12/13/1903.  At this point, I would predict a calendar day high temp of around 8F on Thursday 12/15...which is still about 25 degrees below normal.  It's a bit too far out to go all in on the arctic blast...plus timing of midnight highs, etc.  Either way, an impressive early season arctic outbreak appears to be coming.  The long nights will help too.

 

Meanwhile on Monday, a strong jet topping an anomalously strong
upper ridge over northern Alaska into the Arctic Ocean will help
dislodge an extremely cold Arctic airmass and push near -40 850MB
temps across the Canadian Prairies on Tuesday with -20C to -30C
temps overspreading portions of the upper Midwest Wednesday and
Thursday. Highs around 30F on Monday will give way to single
digit or teens for lows Wednesday morning behind the Arctic front
with little recovery during the day Wednesday. Models continue to
show some spread in exactly how cold we get, with the latest
forecast remaining conservatively on the warmer side of solution
envelope mainly due to the influence of warmer MOS guidance. Raw
output from the latest runs of the GFS and ECMWF indicate the
possibility of sub zero highs on Thursday over some if not much of
the CWA with widespread sub-zero conditions both Wednesday night
and Thursday night. In addition, breezy conditions in advance of a
strong 1040mb high building into the northern Plains Wednesday and
Thursday will result in (again conservative) wind chill values of
10 to 20 below.

[weatherbo]

Looks like cold and region wide snow cover coming.  Could be a long Winter for the sub.  Deep snow in place here now.

[Jonger]

12 hours ago, Natester said:

There is something that I'm worrying about.  December 2005 was super cold and snowy but when late December 2005 and onward onto January and beyond, the winter turned into a complete joke (warm and wet).  I hope this isn't the case this time.

I don't think there is any correlation. You can always count on our pre-Christmas torch to deny us a white Christmas though.

[SchaumburgStormer]

Have some light snow falling this morning. 

[Chicago Storm]

The over 24hr period of non-stop flurries has finally come to an end.

I was wrong, flurries continued overnight and into today.

Approximately a 36hr period of flurries.

[SchaumburgStormer]

Temp crashed down to 11. Popped up a degree as some clouds moved in. 

Feels like winter was running late to a meeting, showed up, kicked the door in all hopped up on coffee, screaming "let's do this!"

[cyclone77]

32 minutes ago, SchaumburgStormer said:

Temp crashed down to 11. Popped up a degree as some clouds moved in. 

Feels like winter was running late to a meeting, showed up, kicked the door in all hopped up on coffee, screaming "let's do this!"

Haha, yep that's a pretty nice way of describing it.  

Been nice seeing some mood flakes flying around the past few days.  The warm Nov is now a distant memory.

[Hoosier]

The bottom could fall out temperature wise later this week.  From a radiational cooling perspective, the Thu-Fri timeframe looks most interesting.  IMO, could easily see nighttime temps of 10 to 20 below as far south as northern IL/IN over what will be deep snowpack and away from lake influences.

[Hoosier]

LOT already has lows around 10 below zero in the cold spots.  

I want to see ARR go crazy one of those nights.

[beavis1729]

21 minutes ago, Hoosier said:

LOT already has lows around 10 below zero in the cold spots.  

I want to see ARR go crazy one of those nights.

Yeah...while the airmass itself isn't off the charts (thicknesses only get down to around 510 at ORD), it should be a good radiational cooling setup for a couple of nights. High pressure around 1035-1040 mb, combined with clear skies, long nights, and decent snow cover, I could see ORD hitting 0-3 below, RFD and outer suburbs 5-8 below, and 10-15 below in the crazy spots like Aurora and Rochelle. A lot of our cold outbreaks in recent years have been advection driven, so it will be good to see a different type this time. Our last good radiational setup in winter was January 2009.

[Hoosier]

20 minutes ago, beavis1729 said:

Yeah...while the airmass itself isn't off the charts (thicknesses only get down to around 510 at ORD), it should be a good radiational cooling setup for a couple of nights. High pressure around 1035-1040 mb, combined with clear skies, long nights, and decent snow cover, I could see ORD hitting 0-3 below, RFD and outer suburbs 5-8 below, and 10-15 below in the crazy spots like Aurora and Rochelle. A lot of our cold outbreaks in recent years have been advection driven, so it will be good to see a different type this time. Our last good radiational setup in winter was January 2009.

Looks like Wednesday night/Thursday morning has the colder 850s and Thursday night/Friday morning may have the more ideal radiational setup in northern IL, so we'll see what happens.

[cyclone77]

Some pretty impressive cold on the way to be sure.  Can't remember it being this cold before Christmas in some time.  Still a good month away from the traditional peak in the coldest temps.

DVN has our point at -5/-6 for Wed/Thu night. 

[slimjim101]

This is the wrap up of the December 11th snow event in Southern Lower Michigan.

Now that the first big snow event of the winter of 2016/17 has come to an end it is now time to see how this event has compared to past December 11th events. In Grand Rapids the official snow fall amount came in at 8.9” The will put this event in 3rd place with 14.5” in 2000 in 1st place and 10.3” in 2nd place is the 10.3” that fell in 1970. So far this month GR has now received 23.6” of snow. This event is also in 3rd place over in Lansing where yesterday they recoded 7.4” with 14.5” in 2000 in first place and 8.9” in also in 1970. At Lansing, the total this month is now at 12.8”   At Muskegon the yesterday official snow fall came at 7.6” this is also in 3 place for the date with 10.8” in 2000 in 1st place and 9” in 1962 in 2nd place. For the month, Muskegon is now at 12.8”.

Over on the east side of the state Detroit set a new record for the date with 10.6” of snow their old record was only 5.5” in 2000.  The monthly total at Detroit is now at 11.6” At Flint they officially reported 10.0” and that fell just short of their record of 10.8” in 2000. And for the month they are now at 13.0” At Saginaw they report there was 7.8” I have no record for the date there. For the month, Saginaw is now at 10.4”

[purduewx80]

looks like snow on snow this evening for northeastern IA and the WI/IL border areas. guidance now trending towards a narrow and short-lived but likely moderate to heavy band of snow with warm advection ahead of the incoming arctic front. some of the areas that saw the better totals with this weekend's storm are likely to pick up a quick 2-3". 

i was in madison, wi, during the winter of 07-08. this is quickly starting to remind me of that december - a few decent storms intermingled with nickel-and-dimers left and right. it'll be interesting to see how many climate sites can reach top ten snowiest decembers in the lakes this year.

[cyclone77]

26 minutes ago, purduewx80 said:

looks like snow on snow this evening for northeastern IA and the WI/IL border areas. guidance now trending towards a narrow and short-lived but likely moderate to heavy band of snow with warm advection ahead of the incoming arctic front. some of the areas that saw the better totals with this weekend's storm are likely to pick up a quick 2-3". 

i was in madison, wi, during the winter of 07-08. this is quickly starting to remind me of that december - a few decent storms intermingled with nickel-and-dimers left and right. it'll be interesting to see how many climate sites can reach top ten snowiest decembers in the lakes this year.

 

Interesting.  If this comes to fruition it would be the 3rd busted forecast in the last 8 days, as those areas are forecast to have only flurries at this point lol.  Much of the guidance has precip accumulating down to the QC, where there's not even flurries forecast.  

[Baum]

I see LOT added 40-50% pops for early tonight. Nice powder event on tap perhaps to grease the slope for the incoming cold.

[Hoosier]

Noticed that the nearshore southern Lake Michigan water temps have dropped 5-6 degrees in the last 5 days.  The coming cold should take another big bite.

[Chicago Storm]

As mentioned, definitely looks like there will be a narrow corridor of accumulating snow tonight. Most guidance is showing it now, though with varying intensity.

Probably a DAB at ORD, with up to 1-2.5" in the main narrow corridor from E. IA and along the IL/WI border.

[Hoosier]

The Euro and GFS bring in some really cold stuff next weekend.  The 2m anomalies look very impressive.

[Hoosier]

Aurora with a little preview of later this week.  Down to 3 there while surrounding stations are generally several degrees warmer.

[beavis1729]

2 hours ago, Hoosier said:

The Euro and GFS bring in some really cold stuff next weekend.  The 2m anomalies look very impressive.

Yep...I think it all depends on the weekend storm. If it deepens and drags down a chunk of cold air, then look out below...especially where there's a deep snowpack. 

[beavis1729]

1 hour ago, Hoosier said:

Aurora with a little preview of later this week.  Down to 3 there while surrounding stations are generally several degrees warmer.

Even ORD is down to 13 and RFD 8, and that's with SW winds ahead of the cold front. 

[SchaumburgStormer]

Chilling at a balmy 5.1 degrees on the weather station 

[Chinook]

500mb temperatures will be -50C with the vortex in Ontario in about 2 days. Sometimes I wonder how the the temp gets so low at only 15750 ft above ground.