roardog

The winter up to this point has reminded me of a weak Nino type of pattern where you get the cold air but it’s dry. We’ve also had the southern snow like a Nino and when the warmth comes, it comes from westerly flow from a folding over PNA ridge. Obviously this is all about to change in the coming days

It’s crazy how windy it’s been here today. Usually we need some kind of decent storm to get 50+ gusts. It’s even more unusual to get that with warm air advection.

How warm was it in Chicago leading up to that storm? I think I remember reading it was well into the 50s here just a couple days before.

Yeah, there should be some pretty significant ridging. There will probably some 60s at least up to central Illinois, Indiana and Ohio. At the same time, arctic air is going to constantly press into that ridge so there should be some big temp contrasts as well as possible ice storms in this pattern.

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

The seasonal snowfall is meaningless when it comes to current depth unless you live in an area that never goes above freezing the entire winter. It was in the 50s with high dew points after Christmas. No snow cover was surviving that.

You say that now but wait until there's a 50 degree rain that wipes out your snowpack in one day. lol

Next week has the potential to have some real sunny and mild overachieving temp days south of the arctic boundary and maybe some decent over running snow just north of the boundary with some big temperature differences from SW to NE. It's just a matter of where the boundary sets up.

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

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.

Someone should have prepared for this and took their snowmobile to New Orleans. You probably could have been the first person to ever use a snowmobile in New Orleans. lol

You? No way. lol

We heard all season about how it was the best division in the NFL and not a single team from the division won a playoff game. lol

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.

If the judging of winter is based off of how many fantasy storms are on the models then we would almost never have a bad winter. lol

Yeah, the EPS kind of squashes the WAR and just wants to keep us frigid.

Tomorrow has that over achieving temperature look. I guess it’ll feel nice compared to what’s coming.

You’ve been complaining about a lack of snow so you want the temp in the 50s so there’s literally no chance of snow? lol

There’s a difference between a winter that’s been too warm to keep a snowpack and one that’s not. Yes, it’s been a dry winter all over the Midwest. Northern Wisconsin might not have much snow cover right now but at least it’s been cold enough to freeze up the lakes for activities like ice fishing which is still a big part of the economy in those areas. That’s the big difference between this winter and last winter. Snow cover in non lake effect areas will always be hit and miss. 2 years ago Minnesota was getting buried with snow and had plenty of cold too so not everywhere had a “bad” winter 2 years ago.

Looking ahead at the pattern on the ensembles, I don’t know how anyone can complain about that look. -PNA, WAR, ridging into Alaska bringing continuous Arctic air into the country. The Gulf should be wide open with that WAR and it’ll be meeting up with bitter cold air. The only question is where will the boundary be. I think some people here get too caught up in watching individual operational runs and don’t stop to look at the big picture.

I think the lack of extreme cold this month has been more about this airmass being of Canadian origin instead of originating in Siberia. That’s about to change with the airmass coming this weekend into the beginning of next week. That has the potential to produce some legit extreme cold.

Like I always say, “warm” weather around here in winter isn’t warm so it might as well just feel and look like winter.

Next week the lake effect will probably be the dust sized flakes that barely accumulate.

What’s funny is the original Weatherbell forecast issued Nov 27 was for January to be very mild over the entire country. A big portion of the country was higher than +3. They changed that forecast dramatically later in December. JB is now forecasting a big flip for late January into February pretty much the same as you are. So, you better change your forecast now. lol

Talking futility on Jan.10th. lol. You live in an area that could get no snow the rest of winter and still get over 17.7 in March and April.