December 16-18 Winter Storm Threat

[Hoosier]

5 minutes ago, Paulie21 said:

Gilbert has been a very respectable forecaster for a long time, posts daily forecasts and discussions for Dekalb, Naperville, and some other locations. He probably has Brant Miller in mind, posting snowfall amounts for a non-sampled system down to tenths of an inch. Not professional and people like him are the reason mets get a bad rep cause he won't even bother verifying this, I'm sure.

He said the right things... "could" and "a lot can change", but I agree... shouldn't have shown that this far out.  You can couch your language all you want but a lot of people are going to see that and believe that's what's coming.

[Hoar_Frost]

22 minutes ago, Paulie21 said:

Gilbert has been a very respectable forecaster for a long time, posts daily forecasts and discussions for Dekalb, Naperville, and some other locations. He probably has Brant Miller in mind, posting snowfall amounts for a non-sampled system down to tenths of an inch. Not professional and people like him are the reason mets get a bad rep cause he won't even bother verifying this, I'm sure.

Gilbert Sebenste is the Staff Meteorologist for Northern Illinois University.  He issues forecasts for De Kalb, Naperville, Hoffman Estates, and Oregon to meet the operational needs of the university (campuses at all those locations).  I know him through other channels (from having done my undergraduate work at NIU), and he's definitely referring to Brant Miller showing those accumulation progs from the GFS.  

Not to veer too off-topic, the thing that a TV broadcaster must realize is that, many times, their presentations will be received silently by viewers - they'll see only the graphics.  Think, for example, a bar that has television sets that happen to be showing news.  

[buckeye]

57 minutes ago, Natester said:

18z NAM has ice ice baby for central Illinois, much of Indiana (possibly skirting Hoosier), north central Kentucky and southwest Ohio.  This is at hour 84 of the 12k NAM.

 might be even a little more icy with this new and unexpected blanket of snow covering most of Central and southern OH.

[cyclone77]

Wagons north.  Another tick north on the 18z GFS.  The I-80 corridor in Iowa into IL looking to see very little if any snow from the WAA side.  Still probably a few more ticks north to go to match the Euro.  For those of us south of the WAA band, we'll have to hope the main energy ejecting Sat does something.  

[Natester]

18z GFS noticeably drier.  Also the low tracks ENE instead of NE.  The one thing that hasn't changed is the EXTREME cold temps on Sunday.

[cyclone77]

1 minute ago, Natester said:

18z GFS noticeably drier.

Very disappointed at this whole setup overall.  Tremendous potential, and really nothing notable to show for it.  This is like the RGIII of storm systems.

[buckeye]

2 minutes ago, Natester said:

18z GFS noticeably drier.

 

I just saw a 12z euro snowfall map and it shows no one in our sub getting over 6" synoptic from this.   Kind of hard to believe.

[madwx]

Looks like the main piece of energy doesn't put down as much snow, at least for those west of Lake Michigan.  Still about .6 to .8 liquid in southern Wisconsin. 

If the second piece of energy stays weaker then areas of Illinois and Iowa might not get much snow at all

 

Edit:  Looks like the main southern stream vort max doesn't dig as much and gets strung out.  correct me if I'm wrong

[Chambana]

1 minute ago, cyclone77 said:

Very disappointed at this whole setup overall.  Tremendous potential, and really nothing notable to show for it.  This is like the RGIII of storm systems.

Hey now he just made it through an entire game without an injury, back off! Lol

[hlcater]

These storm systems keep crapping out and wasting a good pattern. Worst part is the models(GFS) dangles the best case scenario for most of the sub for multiple runs then yanks it away. Disappointed if you cant tell.

[RyanDe680]

2 minutes ago, cyclone77 said:

Very disappointed at this whole setup overall.  Tremendous potential, and really nothing notable to show for it.  This is like the RGIII of storm systems.

LOL.  perfect analogy.  

[Natester]

2 minutes ago, cyclone77 said:

Very disappointed at this whole setup overall.  Tremendous potential, and really nothing notable to show for it.  This is like the RGIII of storm systems.

Well, we still have the rest of the month, plus January and February UNLESS those two months prove to be jokes.

[HillsdaleMIWeather]

18Z GFS would make only a very select few in our sub happy

[Chambana]

2 minutes ago, Natester said:

Well, we still have the rest of the month, plus January and February UNLESS those two months prove to be jokes.

So far this winter has mirrored 83-84 pretty well. January of 84 was cold, and February followed with a very warm month. 

[Hoar_Frost]

Notwithstanding model trends, it is good to remember that the key players for this set-up are still out in the Pacific - a data-sparse part of the Pacific, at that.  

[Baum]

Brant Miller is an old radio personality filling in as a weather person. I have never paid attention to him. And I know Gil quite well; his forecasts have been posted on this board for the 10 plus years I've been here. Still,Would have to hear the whole forecast, but the posting has the caveat " a lot can change."Posting the GFS, and saying plenty can and will change is not terribly irresponsible in my book. Based on that look I'm only getting 16" not 18". I'm discounting the Euro- it's not snowy enough for me. LOT had a nice AFD on the potential for Friday.

edit: based on 18 Z GFS I'm going with 7". I'll update my new total after tonight's GFS run.

[smoof]

14 minutes ago, buckeye said:

 

I just saw a 12z euro snowfall map and it shows no one in our sub getting over 6" synoptic from this.   Kind of hard to believe.

The euro has been garbage for a couple years now with its new upgrades.... the gfs has been doing better if you know how to correct for it's overamping things in the mid/long range that it's been doing since it's "hi-res" upgrade a few years ago.

[Hoosier]

13 minutes ago, buckeye said:

 

I just saw a 12z euro snowfall map and it shows no one in our sub getting over 6" synoptic from this.   Kind of hard to believe.

I'm guessing you were looking at a 10:1 map.

[Hoosier]

lol, I think some of you guys have gotten spoiled based on what's been happening in the past several years or so.  Now, there are some people who have a legitimate gripe about missing out on good storms but you don't have to go back very far (say parts of the 1980s and 1990s) where it was like pulling teeth trying to even get 6-12" storms, let alone GHD 1/GHD 2 type storms.

[Roon]

With the cold that is over a good chunk of this sub-forum ratio's should be fairly high for those of us that manage to stay on the correct side of the low.

[Chambana]

6 minutes ago, Hoosier said:

lol, I think some of you guys have gotten spoiled based on what's been happening in the past several years or so.  Now, there are some people who have a legitimate gripe about missing out on good storms but you don't have to go back very far (say parts of the 1980s and 1990s) where it was like pulling teeth trying to even get 6-12" storms, let alone GHD 1/GHD 2 type storms.

I think us Central Illinois folks have a legitimate gripe, we missed on GHD1/GHD2, and many other 6-12" events ORD-DET corridor has cashed in on. 

Dont get me wrong the 11.9" that fell on 3-25-13 was awesome, but it was gone in 2 days, I think the best storm I can recall in the last 3 years was the "Polar vortex blizzard" even that only dropped 8" but the winds and the high ratio of the snow, and brutal cold made this storm epic. 

[michsnowfreak]

Lots of snow on the ground and bitter cold temps to start, I'm liking the potential with this. Even if it does rain, the cold rushes in so fast it would merely soak right into the deep snowpack. 

[n1vek]

2 minutes ago, michsnowfreak said:

Lots of snow on the ground and bitter cold temps to start, I'm liking the potential with this. Even if it does rain, the cold rushes in so fast it would merely soak right into the deep snowpack. 

My exact thoughts on this. Front end thump and then it's all just qpf soaking into the snow pack. I look forward to your snowpack water content analysis on Monday.

[buckeye]

26 minutes ago, Hoosier said:

I'm guessing you were looking at a 10:1 map.

I think you're right, it was wxbell.   What surprised me was although they use 10:1 they also count anything that falls during 850 temps freezing or below as snow, so on that alone you'd expect a lot more "pinks and purples" showing up.    Unless they've corrected that aspect.

[Hoosier]

18 minutes ago, Chambana said:

I think us Central Illinois folks have a legitimate gripe, we missed on GHD1/GHD2, and many other 6-12" events ORD-DET corridor has cashed in on. 

Dont get me wrong the 11.9" that fell on 3-25-13 was awesome, but it was gone in 2 days, I think the best storm I can recall in the last 3 years was the "Polar vortex blizzard" even that only dropped 8" but the winds and the high ratio of the snow, and brutal cold made this storm epic. 

Yeah, over toward Indy as well.  Climo says you shouldn't expect as much as Chicago/Detroit, but it's been a particularly glaring difference as of late.

I grew up near the area I'm living in now, and I'm old enough to remember the bad periods back in the late 80s and into the 90s.  I remember a good storm sometime in the late 80s and another one around the mid 90s, but besides that, a 6" snow seemed huge to me.  I had never seen anything close to the January 1999 blizzard until it happened.  Ever since then, it's been a pretty good stretch of storms... even while I was living in that relative snow hell that is LAF.

[RyanDe680]

Remember this is one run - everyone is throwing in the towel.  Friday is still 3 days away.

[Jackstraw]

6 minutes ago, RyanDe680 said:

Remember this is one run - everyone is throwing in the towel.  Friday is still 3 days away.

I don't even get the towel out until January!

[Hoosier]

Could be a close call as to whether it ever gets above freezing around here.  If the latest runs are right, the answer is likely yes, but it would probably take a 50+ mile northward shift to really get well above (still well within the realm of possibility at this point) and melt off the paved surfaces.  

For messaging purposes, one thing that hopefully somebody is thinking of is that while it is going to be the weekend, there should be more people that are out and about than a typical weekend with it being the last weekend before Christmas Eve/Day.

[Jackstraw]

29 minutes ago, Hoosier said:

Yeah, over toward Indy as well.  Climo says you shouldn't expect as much as Chicago/Detroit, but it's been a particularly glaring difference as of late.

I grew up near the area I'm living in now, and I'm old enough to remember the bad periods back in the late 80s and into the 90s.  I remember a good storm sometime in the late 80s and another one around the mid 90s, but besides that, a 6" snow seemed huge to me.  I had never seen anything close to the January 1999 blizzard until it happened.  Ever since then, it's been a pretty good stretch of storms... even while I was living in that relative snow hell that is LAF.

My family moved back here in '76 from Apple Valley Ca. so the next 2 years spoiled me.  I was like wow, snow without mountains.  What is this strange place I live now?  But yeah, the 80's sucked, and not just because of the lack of snow 

[vortex]

1 hour ago, Hoosier said:

lol, I think some of you guys have gotten spoiled based on what's been happening in the past several years or so.  Now, there are some people who have a legitimate gripe about missing out on good storms but you don't have to go back very far (say parts of the 1980s and 1990s) where it was like pulling teeth trying to even get 6-12" storms, let alone GHD 1/GHD 2 type storms.

Good point.  I remember getting excited when there was winter storm warnings issued for the 4 or more inches of snow.   Still plenty early and we've already done much better compared to last December.