Winter 2024-25 Medium/Long Range Discussion

[Brian D]

The way I see Feb is cold start, then stormy, milder with brief cold shots, ending with colder wx extending into early March before a milder, stormy wx continues starting in the Ides of March. 

[RCNYILWX]

A more active gradient pattern, more traditional Nina if you will, is being hinted at on a lot of models/ensembles moving forward. This will likely bring more variable weather, more chances of rainers and thaws, but certainly more snowstorm chances as well.

Certainly too early to feel confident in it given uncertainty in the MJO realm, but nice look (500 mb height anomalies and 850 mb temp anomalies) on the 12z EPS in early Feb. GEFS was decent too, but would be cool to get something like the EPS evolution to play out in the extended. Anything to shake things up from the extended CAD doldrums.

At least next week will be warmer here. Should still be a decent pattern (clippers and periods of LES) for the northern Lakes though.

[Lightning]

4 hours ago, Brian D said:

The way I see Feb is cold start, then stormy, milder with brief cold shots, ending with colder wx extending into early March before a milder, stormy wx continues starting in the Ides of March. 

I am excited to see the coming pattern change coming into February.  Scoring a big one well we shall see how it all plays out 

[RogueWaves]

3 hours ago, RCNYILWX said:

Certainly too early to feel confident in it given uncertainty in the MJO realm, but nice look (500 mb height anomalies and 850 mb temp anomalies) on the 12z EPS in early Feb. GEFS was decent too, but would be cool to get something like the EPS evolution to play out in the extended. Anything to shake things up from the extended CAD doldrums.

At least next week will be warmer here. Should still be a decent pattern (clippers and periods of LES) for the northern Lakes though.


 

Got my eye on those!

[A-L-E-K]

nothing exciting imminent but the more seasonal temps, slightly longer days and at least chances for precip will be nice

hopefully we can pop a major somewhere in the region before climo runs out, which is about 3-4 weeks for most of us before big dog chances fall off, fingers crossed

[sbnwx85]

February will be rockin'. 

[TheClimateChanger]

This is an interesting .gif of the MRCC average annual snowfall maps for 1961-1990 and 1981-2010, which was shared at UMich's Great Lakes Integrated Sciences and Assessments program, a NOAA Climate Adaptations Program.  You can see snowfall decrease pretty much universally across the south half of the Midwest in the two time frames, while generally holding steady or slightly increasing in the north. Snowfall increased markedly across many of the traditional snow belt regions.

 

The most recent annual snowfall map from MRCC shows these snowfall bands continuing to push northward. With the area of less than 6" sprawling out from the Missouri Bootheel to encompass much of southern Missouri and southern Kentucky. Will be interesting to watch this progression continue over the coming decades. I suspect the next update will show a marked acceleration of the trends.

[A-L-E-K]

Going down and i'd expect the rate to increase with the rate of warming

[Cary67]

24-30" band maybe here already

[A-L-E-K]

At least it's different 

 

 

[DocATL]

nothing exciting imminent but the more seasonal temps, slightly longer days and at least chances for precip will be nice
hopefully we can pop a major somewhere in the region before climo runs out, which is about 3-4 weeks for most of us before big dog chances fall off, fingers crossed

Curious if that climo period extends out a little further in a Nina?


.

[Stevo6899]

9 minutes ago, A-L-E-K said:

At least it's different 

 

Were gonna go from suppression, to wagons west. Guess it's better than teens for highs.

[RogueWaves]

4 hours ago, Cary67 said:

24-30" band maybe here already

Conversely, it has my area at 6-7 feet annually, lol I wish! More like 5 ft (or a bit under)

[WestMichigan]

6 hours ago, TheClimateChanger said:

This is an interesting .gif of the MRCC average annual snowfall maps for 1961-1990 and 1981-2010, which was shared at UMich's Great Lakes Integrated Sciences and Assessments program, a NOAA Climate Adaptations Program.  You can see snowfall decrease pretty much universally across the south half of the Midwest in the two time frames, while generally holding steady or slightly increasing in the north. Snowfall increased markedly across many of the traditional snow belt regions.

 

The most recent annual snowfall map from MRCC shows these snowfall bands continuing to push northward. With the area of less than 6" sprawling out from the Missouri Bootheel to encompass much of southern Missouri and southern Kentucky. Will be interesting to watch this progression continue over the coming decades. I suspect the next update will show a marked acceleration of the trends.

The 70's were crazy snowy in SE Ohio when I was growing up and it is convenient that the first data set includes that and the second doesn't.  Not saying snow totals haven't declined just maybe not a fair comparison.

[michsnowfreak]

On 1/24/2025 at 6:57 AM, A-L-E-K said:

nothing exciting imminent but the more seasonal temps, slightly longer days and at least chances for precip will be nice

hopefully we can pop a major somewhere in the region before climo runs out, which is about 3-4 weeks for most of us before big dog chances fall off, fingers crossed

Big dogs can occur thru March

[A-L-E-K]

I understand they can, never said off the table, but their frequency in my climo drops off quick for real dogs, ymmv 

As for this year and our sub, I'd be less enthused the further east and south u go

[michsnowfreak]

Ensembles have a fairly active look to start Feb. Last week of Jan looks to continue pretty quiet.

[DocATL]

Ensembles have a fairly active look to start Feb. Last week of Jan looks to continue pretty quiet.

We’ve got some needles to thread. EPS wants to bleed the cold back east the 2nd week of Feb.


.

[SchaumburgStormer]

At this point, if it’s not going to snow either way, would much prefer WAD

[michsnowfreak]

26 minutes ago, SchaumburgStormer said:

At this point, if it’s not going to snow either way, would much prefer WAD

If I'm stuck with one or the other I still pick CAD lol

[cyclone77]

5 minutes ago, michsnowfreak said:

If I'm stuck with one or the other I still pick CAD lol

CAD means MI peeps can still get days of mood flakes from the lakes.  Doesn't add up to much but it is definitely uplifting to look out and see even just flurries floating around if you're a snow weenie.  West of the lakes CAD is abysmal because it's devoid of anything.  It's winter purgatory.

[A-L-E-K]

 

Wettest euro in a long while

[cyclone77]

Just now, A-L-E-K said:

 

Wettest euro in a long while

Nice to see the endless dry hole over the Midwest fill back in with QPF again after what seemed like months lol.

[madwx]

1 minute ago, cyclone77 said:

CAD means MI peeps can still get days of mood flakes from the lakes.  Doesn't add up to much but it is definitely uplifting to look out and see even just flurries floating around if you're a snow weenie.  West of the lakes CAD is abysmal because it's devoid of anything.  It's winter purgatory.

I will say one benefit of this winter is the extra sunshine from the CAD conditions.  Of course the portion of my morning commute that faces eastward at 745 AM is a downside of that 

[michsnowfreak]

2 minutes ago, cyclone77 said:

CAD means MI peeps can still get days of mood flakes from the lakes.  Doesn't add up to much but it is definitely uplifting to look out and see even just flurries floating around if you're a snow weenie.  West of the lakes CAD is abysmal because it's devoid of anything.  It's winter purgatory.

Definitely understand. I've enjoyed this Jan for what it has been. Snow has fallen at least at some point on 23 of the first 25 days of the month, though my monthly total is only 9.0". It's been deep winter for sure, just not deep snow. I know it's been abysmal to the west. I see Omaha has only had 1.0" all season. I'm guessing you welcome the pattern change with open arms.

[roardog]

30 minutes ago, A-L-E-K said:

 

Wettest euro in a long while

I think this is the first time this winter Alek posted this. That's the sure sign of a cold, dry winter.

[OrdIowPitMsp]

Yikes the Euro is selling rain here next weekend. GFS shows a decent snow storm fwiw. Normally I’d be hating on early February rain but I’m just thankful we have something to track. 

[michsnowfreak]

1 hour ago, OrdIowPitMsp said:

Yikes the Euro is selling rain here next weekend. GFS shows a decent snow storm fwiw. Normally I’d be hating on early February rain but I’m just thankful we have something to track. 

Next weekend looks like a brief warm up then the cold recharges. Pattern definitely more active on the ensembles. 

[OrdIowPitMsp]

1 minute ago, michsnowfreak said:

Next weekend looks like a brief warm up then the cold recharges. Pattern definitely more active on the ensembles. 

18z GFS warms us up but also lost the storm. Still a long long way to go and anything is more “active” this the last 3-4 weeks.

[RogueWaves]

1 hour ago, michsnowfreak said:

Next weekend looks like a brief warm up then the cold recharges. Pattern definitely more active on the ensembles. 

Looking more and more like a repeat of late Dec. We finally lost the cold NW flow and promptly got ice and rainers, then right back to cold NW flow.