January 2025 General Discussion

[SchaumburgStormer]

Nice duster ongoing

[King James]

Wind is making this the toughest stretch of this cold spell

[DocATL]

Yes, heavy dusting at my office in Bloomingdale.


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[madwx]

roads a bit slick this morning, may get up to an inch by evening

[hawkeye_wx]

Another nickel-and-dimer this morning.  I've picked up 1.1" so far..  A bit more could fall through this afternoon.

[Brian D]

2 hours ago, thomp2mp said:

Hit -6.5° overnight, with a WC of -19°. 

Had a friend in Pensacola send me this photo of their 8.25" of snow from yesterday:

This storm is very similar to the Valentine's Day winter storm of 1895

Lake Charles, LA 22", Baton Rouge, LA 12.5", Gulfport, MS 6.3", Mobile, AL 6", and Pensacola, FL 3". So it looks like this one will be 2nd or 1st biggest snow depending on final totals at various spots along the Gulf coast. 

[OHweather]

On 1/21/2025 at 3:05 AM, 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/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).

What's fun is that the FAA's full time meteorologists are technically NWS employees, and the NWS has a whole national center (the Aviation Weather Center) dedicated to aviation weather because of how obviously important and impactful it is to public safety and the economy. It's not the FAA personnel at the 21 air traffic control centers who want to get rid of the meteorologists based there, it's higher ups at the FAA, and they were closer than they should have been to getting their wish recently. 

[cyclone77]

Looked like we were in line for a half inch to an inch today but instead we got a T.

MLI and DVN managed to scrounge up 0.2" each.  Top 5 event.

[Chinook]

250mb map and 500mb map for yesterday's cold temps and historical southern snowstorm

[Chinook]

-SN you don't see too much.. it might be a decade. Or an insanely long time, if you think global warming will keep snow out of Florida forever or something like that

[Chicago Storm]

26 minutes ago, cyclone77 said:

Looked like we were in line for a half inch to an inch today but instead we got a T.

MLI and DVN managed to scrounge up 0.2" each.  Top 5 event.

The earlier day stuff was bonus material.

The main round is incoming now.

[TheNiño]

Managed to get about an inch here so far. I’ll take it.

[Chinook]

this morning, my area warmed up to 2 degrees, but the wind chill just got worse. But then, better.

[DocATL]

The earlier day stuff was bonus material.
The main round is incoming now.

Bit of a dud so far in Naperville/western burbs. Maybe we catch a band?


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[TheNiño]

Definitely over performing here we’re at about 2in and still more to come. Trees are covered and roads are slick. Sad I’m excited about 2-3in but I didn’t expect more than a dusting so I’m going to have a beer and let myself enjoy. 

[Malacka11]

How's it going @cyclone77? Top event of the season in progress?

[cyclone77]

1 minute ago, Malacka11 said:

How's it going @cyclone77? Top event of the season in progress?

Not too bad, have a few tenths down now.  May get about a half inch after all.  Models delayed the snow considerably compared to what was shown yesterday and before.  Delayed buy not denied.

[hawkeye_wx]

This weak disturbance barely showed up on some models, but it really over-performed across east-central Iowa.  It started early this morning and it snowed here all day.  My storm total is pretty solid 3.3".  The first inch was 10:1 and the next two inches were 20:1.

[sbnwx85]

Nice patch of moderate to heavy snow about to move in over the house. Pretty neat.

[SchaumburgStormer]

Got some quick hitter action this morning which stacked up to about .6”, then having nice snow fall all evening. Too lazy to go measure, but easily a top 3 winter event. 

[TheNiño]

Still coming down pretty good here. In an otherwise garbage season I’ve been pretty lucky. 

[Lightning]

Overperformer IMBY with this wave/system.  Shoveled 2.5" as of 5:30AM off the driveway.   Based on radar this will end up over 3". Currently have a decent snowpack.  Forgot to post that yesterday MBY low was -10F.  Ice on our lake is 10-12" thick.

[WestMichigan]

MKG picked up 10" yesterday on 0.22" qpf.  Crazy they had 45:1 ratios.  Definitely going to be some settling occurring there with snow that fluffy.

[dmc76]

Another snowy day. About 2.25” so far. Still going. 

[dmc76]

41 minutes ago, WestMichigan said:

MKG picked up 10" yesterday on 0.22" qpf.  Crazy they had 45:1 ratios.  Definitely going to be some settling occurring there with snow that fluffy.

Someone around Fruitport. Probably picked up near 18” yesterday. That was very intense band. 

[WestMichigan]

25 minutes ago, dmc76 said:

Someone around Fruitport. Probably picked up near 18” yesterday. That was very intense band. 

Yeah, I am waiting to see some reports from that area.  Twin Lake in Muskegon County has 14" as of 7:00 last night and Fruitport had 12" at 10:00.  Wish that was over me, but I will take what we got.  It is definitely winter here and I am enjoying the change from the last couple of winters.  Now if we can just get the rest of the forum to get snow.  A nice west to east bowling ball low would be a good start.

[OrdIowPitMsp]

-3F this morning.
 

I’m just going to call it right now that Minneapolis will end January with 1.7” of snow on 0.12” of total precipitation. 

[roardog]

2 hours ago, Lightning said:

Overperformer IMBY with this wave/system.  Shoveled 2.5" as of 5:30AM off the driveway.   Based on radar this will end up over 3". Currently have a decent snowpack.  Forgot to post that yesterday MBY low was -10F.  Ice on our lake is 10-12" thick.

About 3 inches here and it's still not quite done. Back up to about 6 inches on the ground with the bottom 3 inches being more like snow crust.

[roardog]

Just now, OrdIowPitMsp said:

-3F this morning.
 

I’m just going to call it right now that Minneapolis will end January with 1.7” of snow on 0.12” of total precipitation. 

Cold and dry is not something the midwest has seen in a winter month in a long time.

[dmc76]

13 minutes ago, WestMichigan said:

Yeah, I am waiting to see some reports from that area.  Twin Lake in Muskegon County has 14" as of 7:00 last night and Fruitport had 12" at 10:00.  Wish that was over me, but I will take what we got.  It is definitely winter here and I am enjoying the change from the last couple of winters.  Now if we can just get the rest of the forum to get snow.  A nice west to east bowling ball low would be a good start.

Yes, it’s turning into a deep winter again. We have almost at least 5 inches on the ground if not, 6 inches. Almost 3 inches since last night things are looking like a true Michigan winter.