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Winter 2023/24 Medium/Long Range Discussion


Chicago Storm
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34 minutes ago, Sciascia said:

Fox Chicago’s Mike Caplan mentioned in a livestream today that a special mission was conducted to retrieve data from the storm before it makes landfall. Also, that data is supposed to begin appearing in the 00z model suite.

Sheesh..What did they drop in those recon missions?  Nukes?

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Completely hypothetical... But if some location ever did receive 4 feet of snow in 36 hours, how high could a drift get? Real question for the pros though, how well can our weather models forecast an event on the leading edge of an arctic blast like what is shown? What do analogs show? The last one last year also was forecasting a decent snow at longer lead times (there were still blizzard warnings), but we mostly got an inch of dust with strong winds. 
The CIPS analogs start at hour 132, so the best we can do is CPC 6-10 day analogs. The December 1978 analog had 13" in Chicago the last 4 days of the month.

Edit: Aside from some of the obvious greats, my knowledge of Midwest snowstorms prior to my time here (started in summer 2010) isn't the best. Any other dates stick out on the analog list?
c36da7e0a80dc0d5a46675a3eada2f62.gif



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UK about to uncork a monster as well at the end of the run. If that wave decides to dig a bit in the southwest and gets some help from the northwest via phasing or just as a kicker to help it swing out negatively tilted, the sky is the limit with the cold air waiting.

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I’m just so damn happy we have multiple storms to track. This weather has been more boring than when I lived in San Diego. I’m loving this and will accept the inevitable disappointment just give me things to track. 
 

God speed all.

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image.thumb.png.0addb4e5ae45d3e7c7ac8d76bb9545d7.png

image.thumb.png.b8f354295b0721250bbd7d939c0e77cf.png

Pretty similar idea on the 00z GFS and Euro, 6 hours apart. Some truly high end dynamics at play here if this is the general idea we see in a few days, but there are a number of caveats of course. Timing and the amplitude of that main shortwave are the main ones.

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Normally when I make a blog post I repurpose it a bit and upload it here as well, but I need to go in and delete attachments to make room for uploads and I also need to go to bed. So, I'll simply provide a link to the post.

The tldr for the Midwest/Great Lakes/Ohio Valley is:

  • A very active pattern with a -PNA and deepening cold out west continues through next weekend, with the cold air likely getting pulled in next weekend as a retrograding -NAO forces the cold air into the eastern US
  • The air dropping into the west later next week into next weekend will be arctic and legitimately frigid. It will modify a bit before getting to this region but certainly not too much
  • The cutter this Monday-Tuesday looks very robust and a swath of heavy, wet snow seems likely with it
  • The storm Friday-Saturday will probably cut as well, but with more blocking in front of it and increased polar vortex influence may have more front-end snow and may have more room to trend suppressed if there's too much polar influence. That storm has high-end impact potential
  • After that storm the storm track likely gets more suppressed. There may be a brief window for a wave to affect the Ohio/Tennessee Valleys around January 15-16 if the cold air isn't too suppressive. There may be clipper/lake effect potential for a brief window when the cold is most entrenched
  • The pattern likely trends more zonal after January 20th with temperatures trending seasonal to slightly mild. While it will be harder to see an amplified/phased storm, the pattern will remain active with west-east moving systems. It won't be a torch, so some snow potential probably lingers through this milder spell, especially farther north
  • Factors may align for a western ridge and more high latitude blocking the very end of January through the first half of February

Regarding Friday-Saturday's storm, some really impressive ingredients in place:

ecmwf-deterministic-namer-t850_anom_stream-5060800.thumb.png.24111c6ffdc0c583d1210497f18f57af.png

A prolonged cross-polar flow pulls Siberian air and a large chunk of the tropospheric polar vortex into Canada this upcoming week, with that airmass radiationally cooling and deepening over relatively fresh snowpack over western and central Canada. There's also some cold air getting pulled into the Great Lakes ahead of the storm, increasing potential for front end snow north of the approaching low. The arctic air building over Canada drops in behind the storm with a warm and humid airmass getting drawn up ahead of it:

ecmwf-deterministic-conus-pwat_anom-5060800.thumb.png.e0e6b800734153dc5cd9632e19bc898e.png

For good measure, these 3 pieces of energy in the arctic, polar, and sub-tropical jets will all potentially phase and the PV lobe may get pulled in as well, depending on where it is:

38186753_ECM300wind108.thumb.png.2385d6c6c07d4052a527c36d390a75a4.png

This is an absolute powder keg of a set-up, if all 3 pieces phase and part of the PV gets pulled in it would be a high-end blizzard for someone. I would caution, however, that as exciting as the set-up appears to be that PVs don't always play nice with these set-ups and there is expected to be a retrograding -NAO in front of the storm. There's a chance this trends more suppressed, and the 0z EPS members are all over the place with the placement and minimum pressure with the low:

ecmwf-ensemble-avg-ecentus-mslp_with_low_locs-1704499200-1705060800-1705233600-100.thumb.gif.f370c264e646751a9cfff45443329c45.gif

The spread is to be expected this far out and there are a number of members that are nukes, into the 950s or 960s, but we will need to watch how the polar vortex looks to interact with the storm and if there's any suppressive influence or not. 

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