January 2025 General Discussion

[Spartman]

Reached highest temp of 42 at around midnight. A crappy weekend is on tap this weekend.

Saw the first robin of the season yesterday afternoon, despite what's left of the snowpack.

[OrdIowPitMsp]

Midnight high of 16 at MSP. Down to 7 at 6am. I’m surprised but the airport was able to hang onto our 1” snow depth through the 1 day warm up. 

[Brian D]

Extreme cold warning in effect starting later this evening thru Tues am. Wind chills down to -45 or so on NW winds. Midnight high of 16 with temps hovering around 0-5 for the aftrn high here in town before the drop continues. Inland areas should stay just below zero for the aftrn. 

[beavis1729]

There are no words to describe how frustrating this is.  It could have been a Top 10 arctic outbreak for our area, if there were snow cover here and upstream. 

 

The dump of arctic air will be in full swing Sunday night with a
lobe of roughly -27 to -30 C 850 mb air waiting in the wings just
to our north and west, and this will traverse northern Illinois
fully on Monday night. From a climatology perspective, this is
just about as cold as we`ve seen (at 850 mb) in the nearby upper
air database (Quad Cities and Lincoln, IL). Out of curiosity, went
back and took a look at the arctic outbreak from this time last
year (January 14 - 17), which featured low temperatures in the -5
to -15 degree range and wind chills solidly down towards -30 F
(and even lower than that on short time periods). 850 mb
temperatures last year were actually notably warmer,
generally around -20 C. They key difference was a widespread
and dense snowpack which we obviously don`t have this time
around, which just goes to show the power of snowpacks in
altering these arctic airmasses. 

[beavis1729]

3 hours ago, Brian D said:

Extreme cold warning in effect starting later this evening thru Tues am. Wind chills down to -45 or so on NW winds. Midnight high of 16 with temps hovering around 0-5 for the aftrn high here in town before the drop continues. Inland areas should stay just below zero for the aftrn. 

Congratulations - enjoy!  

[michsnowfreak]

Picked up 0.30" of rain and a trace of snow early this morning. Even when a thaw isn't anything impressive (warmest was 38°) seems to maximize its irritation factor. Sunny all day yesterday and then dewpoints to 36° overnight with the rain. About 1-2" of snowpack left which is glaciating. The type where yards/parks/protected areas are 95% covered but near busy roads it's a mix of grass/snow. At least it'll be mostly white.

 

[OrdIowPitMsp]

2 hours ago, beavis1729 said:

There are no words to describe how frustrating this is.  It could have been a Top 10 arctic outbreak for our area, if there were snow cover here and upstream. 

 

At least you can’t blame warm temps for the bare ground this year. It’s been plenty cold just bone dry northwest of the lakes. 

[nwohweather]

"...the data show that winter is approximately two weeks shorter per decade on average across all five lakes since the winter of 1995-1996."
 

https://research.noaa.gov/winter-is-becoming-shorter-in-the-waters-of-the-great-lakes/

Cool study, appreciate this! Crazy to think in my relatively short lifetime winters have shortened by two weeks

[roardog]

1 hour ago, OrdIowPitMsp said:

At least you can’t blame warm temps for the bare ground this year. It’s been plenty cold just bone dry northwest of the lakes. 

Yeah. We haven’t seen this type of pattern in a long time. It seems like we’ve had some semblance of a -PNA and SE ridge for a decade. It’s boring but at least it’s different I guess. 

[beavis1729]

16 minutes ago, roardog said:

Yeah. We haven’t seen this type of pattern in a long time. It seems like we’ve had some semblance of a -PNA and SE ridge for a decade. It’s boring but at least it’s different I guess. 

I suppose…but you’re making it seem like this type of pattern happens occasionally, and that it’s ok. Another example of our standards being beaten into oblivion after 8 years of bad winters. It shouldn’t be that way. It’s fine to have a 2-3 week period of cold and dry at some point in the winter, but that’s why you need to build a snowpack earlier in the winter. Then at least it would look like winter (and maximize the cold) if a cold and dry period occurs. 

We shouldn’t be normalizing bare ground in most of WI, MN, ND, SD, and IL in mid-January. 

[Malacka11]

Obligatory pls lmk if this is nonsense. Y'all know I'm the premier climate change believer ofc, but the one vibe this winter in isolation hasn't given me yet is that it's suddenly that much harder to get snow at our latitude. It's a bad winter for meteorological reasons far beyond my understanding, but it's not like it's been torching the entire time and only snowing up north. There just really hasn't been shit anywhere. For that reason -and please don't take this as me trying to sugarcoat a shit winter- this season's L's aren't quite as depressing as last year's were (again, in isolation) where we kept being just a bit too warm every time or something.

[michsnowfreak]

20 minutes ago, Malacka11 said:

Obligatory pls lmk if this is nonsense. Y'all know I'm the premier climate change believer ofc, but the one vibe this winter in isolation hasn't given me yet is that it's suddenly that much harder to get snow at our latitude. It's a bad winter for meteorological reasons far beyond my understanding, but it's not like it's been torching the entire time and only snowing up north. There just really hasn't been shit anywhere. For that reason -and please don't take this as me trying to sugarcoat a shit winter- this season's L's aren't quite as depressing as last year's were (again, in isolation) where we kept being just a bit too warm every time or something.

It's kind of the complete opposite of 2022-23. That winter was so mild but we were able to get multiple potent winter storms. This winter so far had just been suppression city. No lack of cold at all, but a lack of synoptic precip. Ice fisherman should be in their glory this year.

[michsnowfreak]

The cold is filtering in and everything is turning icy following last nights pointless rain. Ready for the Arctic hounds to unleash. 

[cyclone77]

^ Nice.  Looks like mid November here.

[michsnowfreak]

2 minutes ago, cyclone77 said:

^ Nice.  Looks like mid November here.

Thanks. Definitely fortunate to have some snow considering so many areas dont, but it's still frustrating when you get a random mini thaw to take away 2/3 of your snowpack during a winter full of suppression. Not gonna lie though, it is fun to walk on that crunchy hard stuff when it freezes solid lol.

Hoping for much more activity for our sub the 2nd half of winter. Weeklies say we will, but you know the drill with that.

[OrdIowPitMsp]

Sitting at -13F this morning in Minneapolis. Our coldest low of the season.

These aren’t final numbers but from what I can find currently 

-20F Duluth, -22F Bemidji, -24F International Falls, -26F Ely

[RogueWaves]

A pair of days above freezing (34 & 39F) with some sunshine and warm breezes dropped an already modest 5" depth down to a much more dense 3-ish OTG. Unique to this was zero melting from below - was 100% off the top. Well frozen ground for the win in that regard. 

After working the morning shift, decided to tour the LES belts in NMI to remind myself what deep(er) winter looked like. Considering that region has seen 75-118" of snow already (mostly lake fluff) the conditions ofc were not the deepest due to the regular thaws. Still, no mistaking there's 12-20" depths and more snowmobiles than I'd seen in a long time. Even had enough post-arctic front LES to cause drifts out onto the shoulder of US131 in open areas around Mancelona. To date, Gaylord would normally have about 50" more on the season than Harrison. This winter its almost twice that. Unfortunate that the mini-thaw was working on the salt/sand in the snow banks along the highway leaving that nasty brown and I've seen a melt look. Otherwise, with the lakes having good ice, its a solid MLK winter holiday weekend in the Northland and boy the industry sure needed it after last winter. 

[Chinook]

-20 wind chills coming toward Chicago

[bowtie`]

^ impressive that there is a 36 to 40 degree difference between Minneapolis and Indianapolis. Rooting here for the cloud cover to stick around and keep our temps up.

[sbnwx85]

Lake effect just kicked in. It’s very efficiently accumulating. Went from bare cement to a coating in about 10 minutes. Unfortunately the bands are very narrow so it’ll take a while to get up to an inch locally. The West Michigan shoreline still looks like a prime spot.

[Brian D]

4 hours ago, OrdIowPitMsp said:

Sitting at -13F this morning in Minneapolis. Our coldest low of the season.

These aren’t final numbers but from what I can find currently 

-20F Duluth, -22F Bemidji, -24F International Falls, -26F Ely

It got another 1-2 deg colder than that. The lowest temp I've found across my area is -29 around the Ash Lake area SE of I-Falls. Wind chills are in the -30's with some -40's. -17 here in town with 5-10 mph winds this morning, so wind chills are not a big factor. The lake steam is rising ,and spreading aloft over the shore. Overcast sky here. Ice will form fast under lighter winds. Over the next week will be interesting to see how much ice forms. 

Honestly, just can't wait for some winter storms. Been bleak so far this season. It's a shame when the Gulf coast does better than here. LOL 

[Brian D]

Looks like highs today were able to stay below zero, even along the shore. -sd's with lower -10's up N. -15 for a high at the Cook County arpt N of Grand Marais, and a -14 near Voyager's National Park, and Fernberg look to be the coldest in NE MN. All up near the CAN border.

[Snowstorms]

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

Nothing up this way except some flurries. 

[OHweather]

On 1/16/2025 at 9:48 PM, Chicago Storm said:

I had no idea that DTX (Or any office) had a budget to pay for anyone to go out to a given site and measure snow for them. But, looking at the listing on that website, it appears common, surprisingly.

That now makes sense why DTW would report a T of snow depth, while we don't here at ORD.

 

On 1/16/2025 at 4:59 PM, michsnowfreak said:

Wow I never knew that! DTX first order sites are snow-paids, and I know I've seen most other midwest sites do T in their depth columns too (i look at a lot of F6s). But this makes sense why LOT doesn't. The FAA is so annoying. I love doing it the old school way. Detroit climate has always done T. I know 1948 is when they changed snow depth to whole numbers instead of tenths of inches.

 

On 1/16/2025 at 4:48 PM, Chicago Storm said:

They are not supposed to report a T in OBS based on FAA standards. It is either 0" or 1" SD, with no in-between.

The only thing I can think of is that DTX is requesting it as supplemental information. @Stebo may be able to chime in on that one.

Here at ORD we do not have any sort of agreement like that, however.

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. 

[Powerball]

It baffles me that the NWS and FAA, after all these years, has failed to harmonize their procedures for snow measurements and the responsibility remains so inconsistent between WFOs / reporting sites.

[A-L-E-K]

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

[cyclone77]

-11 here this morning, about 6 degrees colder than what the point had forecast.  

[madwx]

-7 this morning after a high of 4 yesterday. 

pretty cool phenomenon outside right now. There are streaks of virga at low levels but they aren’t falling from any cloud base. Just suspended there 

[Stebo]

Got down to 6 here this morning, got a few nights below zero coming up.

[OrdIowPitMsp]

-13 presently in Minneapolis. 
 

The high temperature reached -1 yesterday here.