The Ole Bucket

Still snowing at a good clip here along the Mississippi. Roads seem to be okay thanks to repeated plowing and marginal temps. Hope a spotter stayed up in the middle of the night and took good measurements. All the compacting from this heavy slushy snow makes it impossible for me to be accurate. Should make for lovely pictures after sunrise though!

It really has been remarkable. Absolutely rock solid for DAYS with only minor shifts. Memphis Low track was snuffed out late last week and hasn't budged.

NWS STL slaps a WSW in my backyard. You love to see it.

Last two runs of the GFS have been what we are looking for. I would feel more confident with a colder antecedent airmass though. It’s real “stay on target” vibes here on out…

Got a dusting overnight here. Now a fresh mix of very light snow/sleet. Last wintry gasp until the torch trend begins

It’s almost noon… and the temps have just now risen above zero. Wind chill -20

Maybe 2” fell here south of STL?! I was hoping for more but not expecting it. Full tundra/Dakotas effect here. Like someone poured a giant bowl of sugar on the ground. I doubt a single flake is left on any roof given the wind last night.. and somehow that and the cold knocked out the Internet and phones at the local hospital -6F right now and wind chill is -27F.

I know y’all are not having the best time with mixed precip or rain, but let me just say this is the most painful two inches of snow ever out here in Missouri. Hours of pixie dust, maybe 1.5 hours of mod snow. Everything has blown and drifted. It looks like the first snow of the year… in the Dakotas. Like someone poured a big old bowl of sugar on everything. All the roofs are blown clean of snow! And I’m about to go out in -27F wind chill. Hope you guys stay warm when the temps crater.

Snow totals disappointed me but my goodness did the wind and temps verify. -27F this morning

Pixie dust and winds increasing sharply here along the Mississippi…

Pixie dust and wind picking up south of STL..

Ste. Genevieve, MO. Right along the Mississippi, about two counties south of STL.

I'm deliberately ignoring the NAM and the GFS, closing my eyes and plugging my ears and going "LALALALALA," in fact... and hugging the 12z HRRR, which gives me 3-5" depending on ratios.

Regardless of the epic snow totals or lackthereof, I must say it is remarkable to get a wind chill watch, winter storm warning and "blowing snow" in the NWS forecast here south of St. Louis. My forecast page and discussion looks like something you'd see and read for the Dakotas.

Let's hope the models are up against the Packers defense.

Downright balmy for Christmas Day! Over here we'll be lucky to get to 25. Looking at Midnight services temps in the single digits with a wind chill around zero. Of course, that will be a significant improvement from Friday AM. We also had plans to go see the beautiful light setup in the St. Louis Botanical Gardens on Friday. NOPE. When that event begins (4pm), if they don't cancel it, it will be 6F with a wind chill of about -15F. The last time I felt -15 was probably 17-18 years ago... walking outside in the middle of the night... when I was a college student in the Chicagoland area.

Ji's ability to do numbers on here, and to generate replies, is definitely unparalleled. A very valuable member of this team. Hopefully we pick up a few inches in my part of the country to go with the absolutely ridiculous cold coming in. Staring at a low of -5 on Friday morning with sustained winds around 20mph. We even got this image in our NWS forecast. First time I've seen that in a very long time.

No offense to my new comrades, but their meltdowns are not nearly as epic as the ones here when the models, and the weather, stop cooperating. And the folks in the Western states sub are constantly optimistic and never upset when it doesn't pan out. It's WEIRD.

There may yet be another swing left with this thing once the upper level feature actually descends into the lower 48..

Chicago makes a good point though about those ratios.. Expecting snow to liquid ratios to average around 15:1, possibly 20:1 western CWA where DGZ will be deeper. The one factor that *should* keep the snow:liquid ratios somewhat in check is the very strong winds which would tend to rip about the larger/fluffier dendrites.

NAM looks like it might be doing NAM things.

Mayo belongs in the fridge, not the freezer!

FWIW, and I'm not sure it's worth a ton, Rayno is still pretty convinced about an STL to DET storm track. True enough that we've got a lot of competing tracks at the moment and the GFS has swung wildly so going with your gut and a kind of compromise between the Euro and American models makes some sense.

BTW this is just using the 10:1 ratios. I won’t even peek at Kuchera, since that’s fantasyland surely.

7” of snow just south of St Louis followed by lows on Christmas Eve morning in the negative single digits and single digit temps at Midnight Mass with 2-day old snowpack?!? I won’t tempt the Almighty or Santa or anyone else by asking for anything more than that.