October 2017 Discussion

[Snowstorms]

7 hours ago, beavis1729 said:

Yep, my bad...was 48 on 10/1. 

The thing about UHI these days is that it's not just the immediate areas around ORD/tarmac, MDW, or lakefront...it's the entire 6 county metro area. I guess that's what 10 million people will do. 

Funny that you hear the NWS in Alaska talk about UHI in Fairbanks relative to surrounding areas. I guess it doesn't take much!

Thats really interesting. 

I know Chicago and Toronto have almost a similar climate and we've gotten below 48F 10 times since September 1st, with the lowest being 39F the other day at YYZ. 

That pesky UHI effect is most definitely playing some role in this.

 

 

[Hoosier]

beavis, you might find this interesting.

Going back to 1980 (when the official site moved to O'Hare) and splitting into two periods of roughly equal length - 1980-1998 and 1999-2016 - the first period of time saw the first freeze occur on or before October 15 a total of 14 times.  From 1999-2016, the first freeze has occurred on or before October 15 only 8 times.

[cyclone77]

10 hours ago, Powerball said:

At least it's not 33*F and cold rain. 

Sucks to be them. 

Quite dark and gloomy out there this morning.  Looks pretty stormy.  Band of showers approaching is slowly dying though, so probably won't get too much.  Hopefully Thursday-Saturday finally delivers some notable precip.

[weatherbo]

This morning's AFD mentions the possibility of first flurries in the UP next Tuesday, along with some lake effect wed/thur as well. 

[beavis1729]

7 hours ago, Hoosier said:

beavis, you might find this interesting.

Going back to 1980 (when the official site moved to O'Hare) and splitting into two periods of roughly equal length - 1980-1998 and 1999-2016 - the first period of time saw the first freeze occur on or before October 15 a total of 14 times.  From 1999-2016, the first freeze has occurred on or before October 15 only 8 times.

Thanks Hoosier - good to see I'm not losing my mind.

 

[RogueWaves]

9 hours ago, Snowstorms said:

Thats really interesting. 

I know Chicago and Toronto have almost a similar climate and we've gotten below 48F 10 times since September 1st, with the lowest being 39F the other day at YYZ. 

That pesky UHI effect is most definitely playing some role in this.

 

 

UHI should be playing an equal role in both metropolis's. I've noticed that the stronger cold pushes over the last number of months going back to last winter some time, have been diving down on the east of the sub towards DTW and over to TOR, not to my west aka ORD. I think there was one single cold plunge following the storm last Dec (around 12th or 13th?) when the cold was focused in a traditional NW to SE orientation from the N Plains to west of Lk. Michigan, aka ORDland. This kinda explains the recent trend with (so far) 3 warm autumns around here. As to the longer range stuff cited by Hoosier, that's another matter, the causes of which could be debated ad nauseum. 

 

 

[Hoosier]

Check out some of these temps from earlier at 12z. Upper 60s/low 70s in early October is really impressive.

[Stebo]

36 minutes ago, Hoosier said:

Check out some of these temps from earlier at 12z. Upper 60s/low 70s in early October is really impressive.

Yeah only about 4-8 above average highs depending on location.

[Hoosier]

Had like 5 minutes of light rain.  I did hear a couple claps of thunder.  

I guess it's on to Friday/Saturday.

[Hoosier]

0.03" at ORD broke the 14 day streak without measurable precipitation.

[hawkeye_wx]

Picked up a nice 0.70" overnight.  A few spots southeast of Des Moines received 2-4+ inches.

Models have been trending south with Thursday's rain.  The NAM and GFS don't have much if anything here until Friday now.  The 3k nam drops up to a foot of rain on part of northern Missouri as storms train over the area.

[Hoosier]

On 10/3/2017 at 11:38 AM, Hoosier said:

Multi model signal for some kind of tropical entity to make landfall on the Gulf coast late weekend/early next week.  In general it looks like a trough to the west during that time.  If it's timed right and sharp enough, it could kick the remnants northward into the region but if it's flatter, then it would probably kick any remnants east.

Just something to watch.

A lot of the 12z GEFS are fairly far west. West of the operational run at least.

 

 

The last October system to impact the region was Sandy in 2012.  Have to go back about 15 years for the last Gulf landfalling system that impacted the Midwest.  Once into October, climo starts becoming less favorable, but it's not something that is extraordinarily rare.

Will have to see if we start getting some agreement on a more western track.  It has the potential to be a decent rainmaker wherever it goes.

[osubrett2]

4 hours ago, Hoosier said:

0.03" at ORD broke the 14 day streak without measurable precipitation.

Today is 21 days in a row without rain at CMH. There were light showers headed this way, but they dissipated. Moderate showers around Mansfield and Cincinnati should stay away.

[Hoosier]

If that tropical remnant does make it into the Ohio Valley, it will have an exceptionally moist airmass advecting northward.  You'd expect that anyway, but the initial system passing by this weekend acts to establish southerly flow/moisture return earlier.  

 

12z ECMWF was farther east with the track, although there are some ensemble members that take it into KY/OH.

[cyclone77]

Picked up a whopping 0.01" of rain this morning.  If we didn't have more rain chances in the next few days this would have been pretty depressing.

[wisconsinwx]

The nice flip side to the negative effects of the UHI effect are days like this; I'm starting to love these days on par with big snowstorms and thunderstorms; a mild start around 60F giving way to a perfectly blue sky with temps in the low to mid 70s all afternoon and low humidity; as Alek would say, best climo!

[michsnowfreak]

Took this while sitting in traffic this morning. Getting colorful outside, even though it was a muggy day lol

[Chinook]

Toledo had a high of 78 today and a low of 68 today. That's 17 degrees above normal for the daily average.

[Powerball]

5 hours ago, Hoosier said:

If that tropical remnant does make it into the Ohio Valley, it will have an exceptionally moist airmass advecting northward.  You'd expect that anyway, but the initial system passing by this weekend acts to establish southerly flow/moisture return earlier.  

 

12z ECMWF was farther east with the track, although there are some ensemble members that take it into KY/OH.

That has to be close to record values (for this time of year) in many locations.

Same with the 1000-500mb thickness values (some models bring the 576m line all the way here).

[Chinook]

People are starting to talk about T.D. 16, with the current forecast somewhat similar to Hurricane Opal. That hurricane happened at the same time of year in 1995. The historical NWS WPC page shows that the inland low-pressure track for Opal was near Columbus, OH, with a fairly large area of 3" rain in Ohio on Oct. 5-6, 1995. The current storm (Nate?) certainly may not be a perfect analog. I remember Opal's rains hitting Ohio.

http://www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/tropical/rain/opal1995.html

http://mp1.met.psu.edu/~fxg1/NARR/1995/us1005.php

http://mp1.met.psu.edu/~fxg1/NARR/1995/us1006.php

[Stebo]

Opal hit MI pretty well with near tropical storm force winds and 2-4" of rain in SEMI.

[Hoosier]

There might be some general similarities to Opal.  There's a chance this one also intensifies quickly in the Gulf and scares the crap out of everyone.

[Hoosier]

17 minutes ago, Stebo said:

Opal hit MI pretty well with near tropical storm force winds and 2-4" of rain in SEMI.

[Stebo]

23 minutes ago, Hoosier said:

There might be some general similarities to Opal.  There's a chance this one also intensifies quickly in the Gulf and scares the crap out of everyone.

If it only grazes Honduras then the potential is certainly there for it to explode fast.

[Hoosier]

Well, 00z Euro came significantly westward. Good rains with a PRE (or something resembling it) into much of IN/OH, even parts of IL before the main circulation approaches.

[osubrett2]

16 hours ago, osubrett2 said:

Today is 21 days in a row without rain at CMH. There were light showers headed this way, but they dissipated. Moderate showers around Mansfield and Cincinnati should stay away.

Streak ends at 21 days as it currently raining. And we surprisingly topped out at 86 yesterday before clouds moved in.

[michsnowfreak]

There was some discussion about first freezes. I looked up the average first freeze each decade for Detroit & Chicago. Keep in mind, this is based on wherever the official reporting site was at the time. For Detroit, the radiational cooling was almost ARB-like in the late 1960s thru most of the 1980s, especially the 1970s. It was sometimes crazy on unseasonably cold nights (regardless of season). Then again, the 1970s was known for its cold weather anyway. Im not as familiar to with Chicago, but I know they had lakefront station at a time.

 

The results? No clear trend. First freeze averaged unusually early in Detroit & late in Chicago during the 1900s. At Detroit, the 1900s, 1970s, & 1980s had the earliest "first freezes" while the 1910s, 1920s, & 1950s had the latest. For Chicago, the 1980s, 2000s, & 1990s had the earliest freezes and the 1920s, 1900s, & 1930s had the latest first freezes. Data starts in 1872 at Chicago and 1874 in Detroit, and obviously the 2010s are only thru 2016.

 

CHICAGO………………….DETROIT

1870s:   Oct 25                   Oct 20  

1880s:   Oct 26                   Oct 21

1890s:   Oct 23                   Oct 19

1900s:   Nov 2                    Oct 10

1910s:   Oct 29                   Nov 2

1920s: Nov 3                       Oct 27

1930s: Oct 31                      Oct 23

1940s: Oct 23                      Oct 18

1950s: Oct 29                      Oct 25

1960s: Oct 26                      Oct 21

1970s: Oct 24                      Oct 14

1980s: Oct 8                        Oct 15

1990s: Oct 15                      Oct 21

2000s: Oct 14                      Oct 24

2010s: Oct 30                      Oct 25

 

ALSO: Kind of crazy how often the first freeze was in November, especially in the old days.

First freeze not til November at Detroit

Nov 01, 1877

Nov 04, 1881

Nov 03, 1882

Nov 06, 1886

Nov 11, 1897

Nov 08, 1900

Nov 01, 1912

Nov 15, 1915

Nov 13, 1916

Nov 14, 1918

Nov 04, 1919

Nov 05, 1921

Nov 03, 1924

Nov 05, 1927

Nov 06, 1931

Nov 11, 1932

Nov 01, 1938

Nov 15, 1946

Nov 04, 1950

Nov 04, 1953

Nov 10, 1956

Nov 04, 1961

Nov 03, 1963

Nov 01, 1971

Nov 08, 1985

Nov 02, 1994

Nov 04, 1998

Nov 07, 2003

Nov 08, 2004

Nov 01, 2010

Nov 12, 2016

 

[Hoosier]

I would argue there is a pretty clear trend since the 1980s, but a lot of it may come down to site location and land development changes.  It would be interesting to take some rural sites and see what that looks like.

[michsnowfreak]

7 minutes ago, Hoosier said:

I would argue there is a pretty clear trend since the 1980s, but a lot of it may come down to site location and land development changes.  It would be interesting to take some rural sites and see what that looks like.

It would be. Clearly the latter third of the 20th century had the earliest freezes overall based on that data. As for the thought of freezes getting later, look how late they were much of the time pre 1960s. The clear blip over longterm trends is the earlier freezes in the 1970s-1980s.

[RogueWaves]

15 hours ago, wisconsinwx said:

The nice flip side to the negative effects of the UHI effect are days like this; I'm starting to love these days on par with big snowstorms and thunderstorms; a mild start around 60F giving way to a perfectly blue sky with temps in the low to mid 70s all afternoon and low humidity; as Alek would say, best climo!

Alek who??