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January 20-22nd Winter Storm

cyclone77

By cyclone77,
in Lakes/Ohio Valley

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Chinook

Chinook

Posted
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Minneapolis gets a bunch of snow on the 00z GFS, 00z Canadian and today's Euro (12z, Jan 18th). The GFS has 12.9" with the Kuchera ratio. Actually the last 2 days worth of runs of the GFS have had the main heavy band of snow at Minneapolis... or north or south. 

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RCNYILWX

RCNYILWX

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Good call!
 
Will it continue?
My guess is the models are responding to the AO being fairly deeply negative, about -2SD coming up to about -1.5SD on Monday. NAO is also forecast to be weakly negative coming up to neutral through the approach of the system. With height field compression from the blocking to the north, the system can only go so far north.

Should the shifts continue, would improve prospects in eastern IA, northern IL and southern WI for more appreciable snow on the back side of the system later Monday and Monday night into Tuesday. As is, the 00z Euro run verbatim has a swath of about 1-4" of snow across parts of northern IL and southern WI Monday night into Tuesday. We'd need the south shift to be much more substantial to avoid rain on the front side of the system.

Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk

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cyclone77

cyclone77

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18 minutes ago, RCNYILWX said:

My guess is the models are responding to the AO being fairly deeply negative, about -2SD coming up to about -1.5SD on Monday. NAO is also forecast to be weakly negative coming up to neutral through the approach of the system. With height field compression from the blocking to the north, the system can only go so far north.

Should the shifts continue, would improve prospects in eastern IA, northern IL and southern WI for more appreciable snow on the back side of the system later Monday and Monday night into Tuesday. As is, the 00z Euro run verbatim has a swath of about 1-4" of snow across parts of northern IL and southern WI Monday night into Tuesday. We'd need the south shift to be much more substantial to avoid rain on the front side of the system.

Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk
 

GFS is playing catchup to the Euro with this, which is normally the way it goes despite a few past systems.  Unless we get an even quicker evolution of the occlusion process it looks like the main body of substantial snows will still end up pretty far north, from northwest IA through central WI.  If the quicker occlusion trend continues hopefully we can muster at least some consolation snows south of the main band of sig snows.

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josh_4184

josh_4184

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Gotta love APX even if the past few weeks have been a snoozefest

Quote 

.LONG TERM...(Sunday night through Thursday)
Issued at 329 AM EST Fri Jan 19 2018

High Impact Weather Potential...Potential for a wintry mix of snow,
freezing rain, and sleet Sunday night through Monday with some ice
and snow accumulation. Then accumulating lake effect snow for a
portion of eastern Upper and northwest Lower through midweek.

Significant differences still exist among model guidance in terms of
the track and intensity of a winter storm for the Upper Great Lakes
later Sunday night through Monday night. Consensus was taking the
storm from SW Iowa Monday morning through the Straits by daybreak
Tuesday. But...(dun dun duuuun) the 19.00Z run of the ECMWF now
takes the storm track farther south through the Thumb, obviously a
colder solution. So specific forecast details such as precipitation
types and amounts are still far from certain. Nevertheless, there is
continued moderate confidence that much of the APX forecast area
would lie within a transition zone, seeing the potential for a
wintry mix of snow, freezing rain, and sleet before warmer
temperatures Monday afternoon would support a changeover to just
rain south of the Bridge. That is, unless things trend towards the
colder ECMWF solution, which would increase the potential for snow
across at least the northern portion of the forecast area. At any
rate, looking like a respectable amount of precipitation from this
system with QPF in excess of 0.5" for the bulk of the forecast area.
This could result in moderate snow accumulation for the Straits
region and eastern Upper. Could be somewhat windy surrounding this
system`s passage as well. We will continue to closely monitor this
system over the next few days as forecast details gradually become
clearer, and you should keep tabs on the forecast for changes, too.

Beyond that, the rest of the long term forecast period looks colder
with renewed chances for lake effect snow across a portion of
eastern Upper and northwest Lower from Tuesday through Thursday
morning. Highs back in the 20s with lows in the teens to single
digits.

 

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hlcater

hlcater

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17 minutes ago, Roon said:

Not sure I am buying the hard right turn in the middle of Iowa that the 6z GFS seems to portray.

That has something to do with occlusion apparently. I don't know how or why, I'm just fairly(90%) certain that it does. An earlier occlusion would lead to a flatter, more southern track.

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cyclone77

cyclone77

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Still a few days away, but MSP continues to show up within the main band of heavy snow on just about every model and model run.  Seems a little early to say any one area is locked in, but sure get the feeling they are.  Gonna be tough for forecasters for areas along where that southern cutoff of heavy snow ends up.  Looks like a pretty steep drop-off in amounts in northern IA/southeast MN.  Could see MSP get over a foot, while La Crosse gets very little.  Models can sometimes underdo the aggression of the dry slot, so that'll be something to watch in coming days.  

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Younar

Younar

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If anyone is interested, the MPX overnight AFD has a great description of the meteorology behind the storm. I’m keeping my expectations in check until tonight’s model runs. Our system comes ashore later this afternoon and I think it should be sampled for the 0z model runs. If we are in the bullseye at that point, I will let myself get excited. MSP has had too many big let downs in recent years, the gold standard of which was late February last year. MPX even issued an apology and explanation after that one. It was bad.

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OrdIowPitMsp

OrdIowPitMsp

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2 minutes ago, Younar said:

If anyone is interested, the MPX overnight AFD has a great description of the meteorology behind the storm. I’m keeping my expectations in check until tonight’s model runs. Our system comes ashore later this afternoon and I think it should be sampled for the 0z model runs. If we are in the bullseye at that point, I will let myself get excited. MSP has had too many big let downs in recent years, the gold standard of which was late February last year. MPX even issued an apology and explanation after that one. It was bad.

I am in same boat as you. Hard to get excited after last Feb epic letdown. Very hard to discredit the model consistency though 

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Younar

Younar

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21 minutes ago, michsnowfreak said:

What happened last Feb?

An article describing it and linking to the apology (in the tweet at the bottom of the article) is below.  The gist of it was winter storm WARNINGS, not watches.... for the twin cities for over a foot and we didn't even see a flake in the twin cities.  It went south (as many systems have in recent years) and nailed RST and EAU.  I remember watching the models trend south at the last minute but MPX was holding the line based on a few hi res models.  In the end, epic disappointment.  The last few winters have been really weak in MSP while places like Souix Falls, Rochester and Eau Claire have generally fared much better.  Maybe it is finally our turn for a good storm.  We are some 15-17 inches below avg to date for the winter so a big dog will go a long way in helping us catch up. Pattern looks fairly active for us in the medium range too so maybe we can rack up some decent totals and break even.

 

Link:  https://www.twincities.com/2017/02/24/minneaplis-weather-service-we-are-snow-sorry-no-blizzard/

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Younar

Younar

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1 minute ago, Younar said:

An article describing it and linking to the apology (in the tweet at the bottom of the article) is below.  The gist of it was winter storm WARNINGS, not watches.... for the twin cities for over a foot and we didn't even see a flake in the twin cities.  It went south (as many systems have in recent years) and nailed RST and EAU.  I remember watching the models trend south at the last minute but MPX was holding the line based on a few hi res models.  In the end, epic disappointment.  The last few winters have been really weak in MSP while places like Souix Falls, Rochester and Eau Claire have generally fared much better.  Maybe it is finally our turn for a good storm.  We are some 15-17 inches below avg to date for the winter so a big dog will go a long way in helping us catch up. Pattern looks fairly active for us in the medium range too so maybe we can rack up some decent totals and break even.

 

Link:  https://www.twincities.com/2017/02/24/minneaplis-weather-service-we-are-snow-sorry-no-blizzard/

BTW my post is not intended to knock the forecasters at MPX.  They do great work and I recognize that forecasting the weather ain't easy.  But the flack they took on that one was nasty...  There have been some other notable busts in recent years which I think added to the general population's frustration.  I'm not throwing stones, busting is part of the weather biz and its gonna happen.  But the average jane and joe don't appreciate how complicated and challenging it is... so things got hot after Feb '17.

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michsnowfreak

michsnowfreak

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6 minutes ago, Younar said:

An article describing it and linking to the apology (in the tweet at the bottom of the article) is below.  The gist of it was winter storm WARNINGS, not watches.... for the twin cities for over a foot and we didn't even see a flake in the twin cities.  It went south (as many systems have in recent years) and nailed RST and EAU.  I remember watching the models trend south at the last minute but MPX was holding the line based on a few hi res models.  In the end, epic disappointment.  The last few winters have been really weak in MSP while places like Souix Falls, Rochester and Eau Claire have generally fared much better.  Maybe it is finally our turn for a good storm.  We are some 15-17 inches below avg to date for the winter so a big dog will go a long way in helping us catch up. Pattern looks fairly active for us in the medium range too so maybe we can rack up some decent totals and break even.

 

Link:  https://www.twincities.com/2017/02/24/minneaplis-weather-service-we-are-snow-sorry-no-blizzard/

ouch that would suck!

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tuanis

tuanis

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1 minute ago, Younar said:

BTW my post is not intended to knock the forecasters at MPX.  They do great work and I recognize that forecasting the weather ain't easy.  But the flack they took on that one was nasty...  There have been some other notable busts in recent years which I think added to the general population's frustration.  I'm not throwing stones, busting is part of the weather biz and its gonna happen.  But the average jane and joe don't appreciate how complicated and challenging it is... so things got hot after Feb '17.


I was up there visiting friends in early November 2014. For days models were dropping more than 15" on the metro. The hype was pretty unreal. The friends we were staying with were located near the airport and ultimately received a half inch of wet slop. I believe they shut down the airport and our trip home was pushed back a day or so.

I feel like the heavy stuff always trends just north or just south of MSP. Maybe they've just had crappy luck - it seems like storms rarely nail the metro.

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Younar

Younar

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22 minutes ago, tuanis said:


I was up there visiting friends in early November 2014. For days models were dropping more than 15" on the metro. The hype was pretty unreal. The friends we were staying with were located near the airport and ultimately received a half inch of wet slop. I believe they shut down the airport and our trip home was pushed back a day or so.

I feel like the heavy stuff always trends just north or just south of MSP. Maybe they've just had crappy luck - it seems like storms rarely nail the metro.

I remember that one all too well. Your observations are right.... and if you believe the 12z euro today, this one is no exception. The storm says hi RST, bye MSP. GFS and Canadian are still our friend but I fear a similar fate as many of our modeled storms. MSP is great at modeled snowfall but can’t seem to reel it in in the end.

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