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1/8-1/10 Potential Winter Storm


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It's weird to see such a lack of cold air to the NW of such a strong January low. Now I personally love wet snow with low ratios, but I fear getting rained out on some of it.

I told myself I wouldn't get so involved in winter model watching after the December 2022 bust here, yet I've been looking at every model run for days on this storm lol

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5 minutes ago, fluoronium said:

It's weird to see such a lack of cold air to the NW of such a strong January low. Now I personally love wet snow with low ratios, but I fear getting rained out on some of it.

I told myself I wouldn't get so involved in winter model watching after the December 2022 bust here, yet I've been looking at every model run for days on this storm lol

This storm is nothing but high hopes and dreams.

 

Head over to - Winter 2023/24 Medium/Long Range Discussion and check the storm out after…

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55 minutes ago, hawkeye_wx said:

The model trend is quite favorable for my area.  The initial wave of snow to the west is inching more northeast and the main wave to the southeast is inching more northwest.  The 06z Euro has Cedar Rapids up to several inches.  :snowing:

I'm changing the oil in the snow blower today or tomorrow.  Gonna be getting a workout in a few days.  :tomato:

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Really detailed write up from LOT.   Interesting notes on the front end/deform
events

LONG TERM...
Issued at 256 AM CST Sat Jan 6 2024

Monday through Friday...

Key Messages:

* Strong storm system on track to bring a very wet accumulating
  snow to the region Monday night into Tuesday night

* While specifics still remain a bit uncertain, we continue to
  hone in on two main windows of impacts: 1) Monday night mainly
  near and south of I-80 with a several hour burst of snow
  potentially intercepting some of the evening commute and 2)
  Tuesday midday and overnight with more widespread impacts from
  wet accumulating snow and strong/gusty winds.

The parent disturbance set to spawn our storm system for the start
of the week continues to make steady eastward progress, and is
now approaching the Pacific Northwest. Water vapor loops show a
strong-divergent jet streak shuttling across Washington and Oregon
early this morning. This feature will begin to dive southeastward
today and tonight, eventually sweeping across the Great Basin
Sunday night before emerging out across the Great Plains on
Monday.

While individual deterministic models continue to (unsurprisingly)
show run-to-run wobbles, the ensemble envelopes are generally
tightening up and clustering around a preferred solution,
depicting a deepening surface low tracking from near or just south
of St. Louis towards Indianapolis and eventually across Lower
Michigan. Historically, this is a classic track/set-up for
significant snow events in our area. The limiting factor this time
around, however, remains the lack of an antecedent reservoir of
cold air. This has implications on a few items. First: snow-to-
liquid ratios will be well under climatological values and under
10:1 on the whole. Second: The rain/snow line will probably press
into our forecast area, and an eventual transition to even all
rain is on the table across parts of the region, with chances
increasing the farther south and east you go. Third: the gradient
separating the most significant snowfall amounts will likely be
sharper than model guidance depicts and relegated to a narrow
corridor where the strongest f-gen/deformation forcing develops.
Pinning this perhaps 30-50 mile-wide area down at this range
remains a fool`s errand, but signals point to this developing
somewhere in our CWA.

A trend which started to emerge last night continues to develop
tonight in model guidance, with two relatively distinct periods
of impacts. The first, which is slated to arrive Monday night will
occur with the initial burgeoning warm advection wing of the
deepening surface low. Very strong ascent looks to, at least
briefly, overlap the core of the DGZ as precipitable water values
begin to increase past 0.6 to 0.7 inch. While it`ll be close,
latest guidance suggests precip may initially begin as snow
everywhere in our area before transitioning to a rain/snow mix or
all rain in our southern locales. Depending on when forcing
arrives, this "thump" of snow may intersect at least the tail end
of the Monday evening commute with an extremely wet snow (SLRs
might trend towards 6-8:1 which even with relatively modest snow
amounts would likely yield challenging travel conditions in spots.
Positive snow depth change output is pretty telling in this
regard, with amounts essentially halved or even less compared to
raw 10:1 output, indicating some degree of melting will probably
occur with this first round Monday night. Model trends appear to
be honing in on locales near/south of I-80 with the heftiest
activity from this first burst of snow, with chances for at least
two inches of snow evident.

The second window looks to occur after a brief period of mid-level
drying works its way across the area which may result in a
temporary lull in precip rates early Tuesday morning. This window
is roughly Tuesday afternoon and night as the main surface low
deepens more appreciably and f-gen/deformation band forcing takes
over. Strengthening north and northeasterly winds combined with
the low SLRs will support a plastering-type snow. As mentioned
above, the very highest snowfall amounts will likely occur in a
narrow axis, with a relatively sharp fall-off in amounts either
side of this. The multi-model consensus and ensemble output
currently suggests the highest chances for over 4 inches of snow
with this second wave essentially straddling the I-55 corridor,
with rain chances increasing off to the south and east. Again,
model probabilities are probably smeared out much wider than will
be realized owing to (1) lingering model spread and (2) lack of
modeling melting/compaction which will undoubtedly occur in this
marginal temperature environment. Freshening winds off the 40
degree lake may also play a role in locally muting accumulations
right at the lakefront.

Conditions will ease through Wednesday morning as the low departs.
Beyond this, another robust vort max looks to descend upon the
region late Wednesday night into Thursday. Forecast soundings show
this will probably be snow for most of the area, although noting a
very quick loss of deeper saturation suggesting at least some
potential for things to transition to drizzle/freezing drizzle.

A signal exists in the extended guidance for yet another
potentially significant winter system somewhere in the vicinity
towards the end of the week and upcoming weekend...

Carlaw
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There has been a significant shift/expansion nw on the GEFS mean... Cedar Rapids has gone from 3" a day ago to now 8".  The op run only has 5" here, so this suggests there may be room for even more nw shift.  Concurrently, the Chicagoland lakeshore has been cut back quite a bit.

image.thumb.png.4ebdd6b23e8ed529ac64cb193c0d53d3.png

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1 minute ago, hawkeye_wx said:

There has been a significant shift/expansion nw on the GEFS mean... Cedar Rapids has gone from 3" a day ago to now 8".  Concurrently, the Chicagoland lakeshore has been cut back quite a bit.

image.thumb.png.4ebdd6b23e8ed529ac64cb193c0d53d3.png

Ironic. Just yesterday our chief met where I work was talking about how it's trending east and he was expecting snow totals over southern Wisconsin to decrease enough that he could cancel the "Alert Day" for Tuesday.

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1 minute ago, CheeselandSkies said:

Ironic. Just yesterday our chief met where I work was talking about how it's trending east and he was expecting snow totals over southern Wisconsin to decrease enough that he could cancel the "Alert Day" for Tuesday.

Yeah, our local mets have been talking down the event as well as it trended southeast.  However, that will reverse today.

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19 minutes ago, hawkeye_wx said:

There has been a significant shift/expansion nw on the GEFS mean... Cedar Rapids has gone from 3" a day ago to now 8".  The op run only has 5" here, so this suggests there may be room for even more nw shift.  Concurrently, the Chicagoland lakeshore has been cut back quite a bit.

image.thumb.png.4ebdd6b23e8ed529ac64cb193c0d53d3.png

If Rockford has a magnet, this is about as far NW as it can go in terms of getting the most snow.

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[mention=3997]RCNYILWX[/mention] If you don't mind, what are your thoughts? Will we see a continued NW trend or some modulation back south?
You have competing factors - there is downstream -NAO blocking but it's in a bit of a low ebb as a 50N/50W low kicks out. Meanwhile, it's a dynamic, deepening system that wants to cut at least some due to height rises/latent heat release out ahead of it.

I don't think it's going to go substantially NW bc of the downstream blocking but unfortunately we'll probably be riding the line due to the lack of an entrenched colder air mass that could have had the baroclinic zone farther southeast. We might have more wiggle room in the western suburbs than in the city and due south burbs.

Sent from my SM-G998U using Tapatalk

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14 minutes ago, hawkeye_wx said:

12z Euro... the only gripe I have with this run is the defo zone across eastern Iowa is rather weak-looking considering there is a 978 mb low over central IL.

image.thumb.png.00fd6f83ff85a7b1ed9d4cec60c2806f.png

850mb and sfc low are occluding so you're losing your moisture advection into the CCB back that ways. 

Chicago area continues to look like a 4-8"ish event of cement off 1"+ of QPF. 

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6 minutes ago, Thundersnow12 said:

850mb and sfc low are occluding so you're losing your moisture advection into the CCB back that ways. 

Chicago area continues to look like a 4-8"ish event of cement off 1"+ of QPF. 

I don't buy 4-8 yet.  Areas that get initial front end will either melt or miss the deform.  Areas that get just deform will still struggle to accumulate due to daytime temps

On paper and in models 4-8 looks reasonable but in reality I don't think it will be.

If it does shift slightly northwest  then areas like Rockford have the best shot at anything over. 5.  

 

 

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