January 2025 General Discussion

[Brian D]

Currently have 2 -39's on the board in NE MN. One in Tower, and the other at Ash Lake. Low max records could fall today with highs in the mid-upper -10's inland. Low of -19 here in town with overcast along the shoreline again from the Lake steam. 

[Brian D]

Significant low max's yesterday.

I-Falls -12 (4th), Hibbing -10 (T2nd), Duluth -8 (T4th), Brainerd -7 (3rd), Park Rapids -10 (T4th), Ashland, WI -3 (2nd), Eau Claire, WI -4 (T3rd).

[Chicago Storm]

1 at the apartment, 0 at the office, -1 at ORD, feels like a bit of an underperformer but i really haven't been paying attention temp modeling

Tonight was always looking like the coldest of the period, for both wind chills and actual temps.

So, we’ll see how it goes.

[mississaugasnow]

21 hours ago, Snowstorms said:

@mississaugasnow Your area must be getting some nice lake effect snow today off Lake Ontario. 

Nothing up this way except some flurries. 

Just missed it by about 10km 

[Chinook]

This is a large number of extreme cold warnings and winter storm warnings along the Gulf of Mexico

[beavis1729]

5 hours ago, Brian D said:

Significant low max's yesterday.

I-Falls -12 (4th), Hibbing -10 (T2nd), Duluth -8 (T4th), Brainerd -7 (3rd), Park Rapids -10 (T4th), Ashland, WI -3 (2nd), Eau Claire, WI -4 (T3rd).

Just to show what this airmass was capable of…it looks like Ely MN will post a -17/-36 today, for a daily average of -26.5. This may be a Top 10 all-time coldest day on record there.

The max of -17 is even more impressive. While the -36 min would be great to experience, I imagine Ely hits -40 every 3-5 years (?) on average.

I was in Grand Marais MN over the 4th of July this year. A beautiful area, and a nice cool breeze during the summer. 

[OrdIowPitMsp]

Temps stuck at -8 all day. We’ve had ice crystal squalls move through and deposit dustings at time. Haven’t experienced something quite like this before at these temperatures.

There might have been a 5min obs of -6 but we’ll see what the official high is at 6pm. 

[bowtie`]

6 hours ago, Chicago Storm said:

Tonight was always looking like the coldest of the period, for both wind chills and actual temps.

So, we’ll see how it goes.

Were all these clouds forecast? 

[cyclone77]

Getting some pixie dust squalls here at times.  

[bowtie`]

It felt cold outside for the sunset. Did it look cold?

 

[OrdIowPitMsp]

It looks like the official high in Minneapolis will be -6F today. That makes today the coldest high temperature since the -13F on 1/30/2019. That day featured a low of -28F which is the coldest it’s gotten here since I moved to Minneapolis in 2016. 

[michsnowfreak]

23 hours ago, OHweather said:

 

 

So, as an NWS met who routinely sends out climate reports for first order sites, including snowfall, this exchange was fascinating to me.

We have 6 first order climate sites in our CWA that all measure snow. 3 are FAA contract observers, with the observers measuring the snow for site. The other 3 are snow paid observers. The snow paid observers are trained to report trace depth and do so. The 3 sites with FAA observers do not officially put the Trace in their obs, however, they do note it in their logs. We call them every 6 hours to verbally get the new snow and depth and they tell us the traces. So needless to say, while I knew the T depth did not show up in the METAR and doesn't get pulled into our system, I had no idea that it's technically now a valid ob based on FAA standards that sometimes isn't reported. 

DTX has had snow paids for years as when the NWS moved from DTW to White Lake in 1995 the FAA was not doing a great job. It makes sense to have a snowpaid observer in a nearby proper measuring area rather than airports that are making it increasingly difficult to measure on site. 

Ever since chicagostorm mentioned the T depth thing, I've been browsing a bunch of f6s. It seems almost every NWS except LOT includes T depths in their f6 (whether it's in the FAA logs or not). I get that the FAA has their thing, but no reason official weather data shouldn't be precise as it has been for well over a century.

[michsnowfreak]

Dressed real warm and thought I'd go for a winter hike in the park. It ended up being a short walk. The wind chill was too much even for me, couldnt stop tearing up.

 

[OrdIowPitMsp]

Already -17 at MSP. That was the forecast low tonight. Let’s make a run for -20! 

[Powerball]

11 hours ago, michsnowfreak said:

DTX has had snow paids for years as when the NWS moved from DTW to White Lake in 1995 the FAA was not doing a great job. It makes sense to have a snowpaid observer in a nearby proper measuring area rather than airports that are making it increasingly difficult to measure on site. 

Ever since chicagostorm mentioned the T depth thing, I've been browsing a bunch of f6s. It seems almost every NWS except LOT includes T depths in their f6 (whether it's in the FAA logs or not). I get that the FAA has their thing, but no reason official weather data shouldn't be precise as it has been for well over a century.

I decided to dig down the rabbit hole a bit, and the chasm that exist between NWS and the FAA is kind of wild.

Currently, the FAA has full-time meteorologists based at 21 "Air Route Traffic Control Centers," in addition to a huge team of contracted weather observers at first order airports across the country. This wasn't even a universal thing until a terrible incident in the early 1980s in which an airplane nearly crashed due to damage from an unexpected t'storm.

In essence, the FAA doesn't believe weather observing is a core tenant of its responsibilities (which, in all fairness, it wasn't prior to the early 1980s), so they treat it like a red-headed stepchild. The FAA and NWS will publicly call it a "partnership" to save face, but it's a really lopsided relationship with the FAA being the hostile party, as they have been increasingly uncooperative with the NWS who just wants to ensure they're getting quality observations. In fact, back in 2013 as part of the sequestration (as I'm sure some remember), not only did the FAA bar the NWS from training/monitoring their weather observers or even forcing the contractors to take outside observations, but the FAA was pretty damn close to eliminating dedicated weather observer positions for 1st order sites entirely (fortunately, this was stopped in the 11th hour). The "duties", had that happened, would have been picked up as an after thought by the air traffic controllers who generally have no formal education/certifications in meteorology.

To this day, the FAA continues to push for phasing out / eliminating contract weather observers and even their full-time meteorologists, although this still has yet to come to fruition. To them (the FAA), these positions are seen as low-hanging fruit for reducing expenses given its own budget constraints.

As has been made apparent, the NWS over time has become disillusioned/frustrated about this arrangement, for all the good reasons mentioned above.  That why for some of the more detail-oriented observations that don't require dedicated headcount (such as snow measuring), many branches have opted to pay a stipend to civilians who they train and who use proper equipment (which the FAA doesn't necessarily do).

[A-L-E-K]

nice post powerball

[Spartman]

11 hours ago, bowtie` said:

Were all these clouds forecast? 

You jinxed it! After no sun all weekend followed by the sunniest day for the month on yesterday, TWC/Wunderground wants day after day of suicide weather from today through Thursday, especially with the coldest low of the season Wednesday morning tomorrow in this "Arctic" outbreak. Garbage.  

ZZZZZZZZZ.

[Lightning]

LES band was on and off yesterday, but since yesterday evening it has been going petty nice here making it very wintery with the cold temps.  

[A-L-E-K]

feels like a long time since a classic w michigan les winter, happy for u guys

[cyclone77]

-13 and still slowly dropping.  Impressive cold for such widespread bare ground.

[Cary67]

-10F

[Stebo]

4 hours ago, Powerball said:

I decided to dig down the rabbit hole a bit, and the chasm that exist between NWS and the FAA is kind of wild.

Currently, the FAA has full-time meteorologists based at 21 "Air Route Traffic Control Centers," in addition to a huge team of contracted weather observers at first order airports across the country. This wasn't even a universal thing until a terrible incident in the early 1980s in which an airplane nearly crashed due to damage from an unexpected t'storm.

In essence, the FAA doesn't believe weather observing is a core tenant of its responsibilities (which, in all fairness, it wasn't prior to the early 1980s), so they treat it like a red-headed stepchild. The FAA and NWS will publicly call it a "partnership" to save face, but it's a really lopsided relationship with the FAA being the hostile party, as they have been increasingly uncooperative with the NWS who just wants to ensure they're getting quality observations. In fact, back in 2013 as part of the sequestration (as I'm sure some remember), not only did the FAA bar the NWS from training/monitoring their weather observers or even forcing the contractors to take outside observations, but the FAA was pretty damn close to eliminating dedicated weather observer positions for 1st order sites entirely (fortunately, this was stopped in the 11th hour). The "duties", had that happened, would have been picked up as an after thought by the air traffic controllers who generally have no formal education/certifications in meteorology.

To this day, the FAA continues to push for phasing out / eliminating contract weather observers and even their full-time meteorologists, although this still has yet to come to fruition. To them (the FAA), these positions are seen as low-hanging fruit for reducing expenses given its own budget constraints.

As has been made apparent, the NWS over time has become disillusioned/frustratex about this arrangement, for all the good reasons mentioned above.  That why for some of the more detail-oriented observations that don't require dedicated headcount (such as snow measuring), many branches have opted to pay a stipend to civilians who they train and who use proper equipment (which the FAA doesn't necessarily do).

FAA should have never taken over any of this, it is a conflict of interest. If they control the weather observations they can put out whatever they want which would keep planes flying in adverse weather. It is always a concern about the positions getting eliminated but thankfully congress on both sides realizes the importance of contract weather observers and we are a small portion of the FAA budget to begin with. The value of information we produce is very high for the cost.

As for snow measuring, I would love to do it here at DTW but as you all have seen from posts in the past, my office is on top of the terminal and 70 feet in the air. It is impossible to measure snow up here with no protected grass. We had done it in the past before we moved into the Evans (North) terminal in 2010.

[Stebo]

5 was the lowest so far today, we have had a bit of snow flurries and clouds.

[OrdIowPitMsp]

-19 is the lowest we got at MSP. 

[madwx]

-14 here. Might squeak out -15 but warming should commence shortly

[RCNYILWX]

-13 and still slowly dropping.  Impressive cold for such widespread bare ground.

Agree, really impressive airmass. The most intense cold with no snowpack in quite some time. For Chicago, have to go back to Feb 4-5, 2007 for a comparable event. Rockford had snow otg in that stretch, so it's been even longer there. Would've been interesting to see how close this got to the end of January 2019 with a solid snowpack in place.

Edit: Rockford, at -11, at least tied 1/17/1954 for the coldest temp without snow cover since 1951.

[michsnowfreak]

6 hours ago, Powerball said:

I decided to dig down the rabbit hole a bit, and the chasm that exist between NWS and the FAA is kind of wild.

Currently, the FAA has full-time meteorologists based at 21 "Air Route Traffic Control Centers," in addition to a huge team of contracted weather observers at first order airports across the country. This wasn't even a universal thing until a terrible incident in the early 1980s in which an airplane nearly crashed due to damage from an unexpected t'storm.

In essence, the FAA doesn't believe weather observing is a core tenant of its responsibilities (which, in all fairness, it wasn't prior to the early 1980s), so they treat it like a red-headed stepchild. The FAA and NWS will publicly call it a "partnership" to save face, but it's a really lopsided relationship with the FAA being the hostile party, as they have been increasingly uncooperative with the NWS who just wants to ensure they're getting quality observations. In fact, back in 2013 as part of the sequestration (as I'm sure some remember), not only did the FAA bar the NWS from training/monitoring their weather observers or even forcing the contractors to take outside observations, but the FAA was pretty damn close to eliminating dedicated weather observer positions for 1st order sites entirely (fortunately, this was stopped in the 11th hour). The "duties", had that happened, would have been picked up as an after thought by the air traffic controllers who generally have no formal education/certifications in meteorology.

To this day, the FAA continues to push for phasing out / eliminating contract weather observers and even their full-time meteorologists, although this still has yet to come to fruition. To them (the FAA), these positions are seen as low-hanging fruit for reducing expenses given its own budget constraints.

As has been made apparent, the NWS over time has become disillusioned/frustratex about this arrangement, for all the good reasons mentioned above.  That why for some of the more detail-oriented observations that don't require dedicated headcount (such as snow measuring), many branches have opted to pay a stipend to civilians who they train and who use proper equipment (which the FAA doesn't necessarily do).

I chatted with a now-retired DTX met many years ago about this exact situation, and you have said it perfectly. The FAA did such a terrible job with taking control of the weather obs, including sometimes reporting a snow measurement that was oddly high but far more often reporting one clearly too low, that sometimes the DTX mets had to make judgment calls in adjusting the snow data for official purposes by using nearby reports. They also werent super cooperative (FAA that is). Then ASOS became the end all with the FAA, and AT FIRST, they werent allow to alter ASOS data. In its infancy, ASOS did a terrible job with dry snowfall, and to this day, some of the records are stuck with ridiculous low-balled liquid totals. This particularly affected DTW during the cold winter with heavy dry snowfall of 2002-03.  Some of the ridiculous data thats in the books- Dec 2 snowstorm 5.8" had 0.11" water. Dec 24/25 snowstorm 6.5" had 0.16" water. Jan 2 snowfall 5.3" had 0.11" water. Feb 10/11 snowfall 3.2" had 0.02" water. Feb 22/23 snowstorm of 7.3" had 0.14" water. Mar 5th snowfall 4.1" had 0.04" water. The winter of 2002-03 is officially listed as Detroits driest winter on record, and thats pathetic. While precip was below avg (it was almost all dry snow), I had a rain gauge by then can assure that that winter realistically was probably somewhere between 20th and 25th driest, not #1.

As the years went on, ASOS improved greatly with dry snowfall and NWS could alter the liquid totals if need be. Today, ASOS does a very good job in all but the real, dry fluffy snow. But you still need all that man-power. Not just to actually measure snow, but to be a real-live weather observer. ASOS can malfunction easily. Ive also heard from another region that ASOS can have an error within 2F before they rush to fix it. Thats wild. I think RIGHT NOW, with so many dedicated snow-paid observers, weather observers, and some good NWS mets, we are in a decent spot where we can overcome any FAA fuss and still have good quality weather data. But we will ALWAYS need man-power, so FAA needs to give it a rest. Its already terrible to see how detailed weather books were 100 years ago compared to now, lets not drop any further.

[SchaumburgStormer]

Bottomed out at -12/-32 split here last night. With a deep snow pack, could have been really bonkers 

[michsnowfreak]

1 hour ago, Stebo said:

FAA should have never taken over any of this, it is a conflict of interest. If they control the weather observations they can put out whatever they want which would keep planes flying in adverse weather. It is always a concern about the positions getting eliminated but thankfully congress on both sides realizes the importance of contract weather observers and we are a small portion of the FAA budget to begin with. The value of information we produce is very high for the cost.

As for snow measuring, I would love to do it here at DTW but as you all have seen from posts in the past, my office is on top of the terminal and 70 feet in the air. It is impossible to measure snow up here with no protected grass. We had done it in the past before we moved into the Evans (North) terminal in 2010.

Exactly. Its not as if you dont want to do it, its that your location makes it impossible. The DTW snow site is approx 2-3 MI E of the south side of the airport. Flint also has a similar thing. Im surprised all the northern MI sites do as well, as I wouldnt think it would be as difficult as those airports, but apparently it is. Ive heard TOL is like 3-4 miles SW of the airport, but cant confirm. 

[michsnowfreak]

I see Rochester, MN was -20F with 0 snow on the ground. Anyone know todays coldest readings for an area with absolutely no snowcover?