Chinook

Oh yeah, that's right, you are the one from Toledo OH also. Oh well, for what it's worth, I never get a fight to Toledo, because it's too expensive to fly to a minor airport. I am also glad that I am not planning to drive 1200 mi to Ohio any time soon. As a result of some of these drives, I have a lot of interest in severe storms and bad weather all along I-80. I have invented a name for I-80/I-294 in south Chicago area. (Hammond, IN, South Holland IL) I call it "Traffic Canyon." Traffic flows pretty smoothly with so many lanes.

I will be flying across the country to a certain Great Lakes city on Friday 12/21, and the newest GFS forecast has 977mb near that city, with a very large array of rain and some snow in the GL/OV. I wonder if I will have any flight delays. 977mb is notable.

sunset over the mountains (yesterday)

CFS: Clowns Forecast Sunshine (and warmth!)

Mount Baker National Forest in Washington has up to 88" in its point & click weather forecast, for just 5 days.

Perhaps this storm should be called "Carolinapocalypse"

My area had some snow yesterday, Fort Collins and Loveland got roughly 1" of snow, with a high of about 24. I almost slipped on the ice, late in the day. Today there are very clear skies, and I could see Long's Peak and the Mummy Range with only a bit of clouds over the mountaintops. In about 6 days, there is a possibility of a more northerly shortwave/ cold front and snow for Colorado. Right now, it's certainly not obvious that it will snow at low elevations. The vorticity plot looks pretty darn cool, though.

Snow % of normal now and roughly 25 days ago

If the models make a small mistake with the low-level temps, this snow north of OKC turns to ice or rain. The low-level profile here from the GFS is good for heavy snow, it's just so close to 0*C up to 700mb. The 500mb heights are so high, that the 1000-500mb critical thickness line is in Kansas, about 10 miles north of Wichita. We have a long time before this is a short-range forecast, so the models will obviously take some time to resolve the exact rain/snow line (or freezing rain/sleet profile, if that exists.)

If anybody wants to *fantasize* for Oklahoma based on 1988, check out this Jan 4th-7th 1988 storm total plot! I think I see an 18" contour in there.

GFS Ensembles/ECMWF ensembles really show above-average temps in Canada from day 5-day 10. We may have a hard time getting arctic air for storms in the Plains/Midwest for quite a number of days, in that period (Dec 7-12)

interesting note: on the SPC web page, the state of Oklahoma had 22 tornadoes from Jan 1st to Nov. 15th, and I suppose add (a big) +1 to that considering Friday night. Illinois had 22 preliminary tornado reports yesterday. Even if roughly 15-17 are confirmed out of this, Illinois still had about 3/4 as much tornadoes in one day, compared to all year in Oklahoma.

As of right now, the models have something very interesting for Oklahoma in about a week

Confirmed tornado report near Beardstown (21:31z), also a tornado reports at Brooklyn IL (near Camden IL) and Industry IL (near Macomb)

The main tornado-warned storm tracked from about Quinton OK (early tornado warning, maybe earliest tornado warning) to Chewey, Flint Creek, and Colcord, where eventually tornado warnings were cancelled. Quinton OK to Colcord, OK is 87 miles. I noticed the TDS on radar at around Gore, OK, and the tornado/TDS went over Tenkiller, OK, and may have existed for a few more miles. Possible tornado length of 32 miles or more.

DIA has had dense fog since 7AM. I wonder if this is affecting a lot of traffic in the metro area. Note: snowfall of 12-16" is in the NWS official forecasts for South Dakota/Nebraska border

We haven't had an El Nino since 2015-2016. Last year was not all that great. The northern mountains were near 100% of normal snowfall, but everything south of RMNP was below 100% of normal snowfall. And I've got an even worse answer for you. The whole southwestern section of the United States has been below normal precipitation for the 10 years preceding this year, and this year too.

Things seem to be trending away from any significant snow here. In the short range, (72 hrs) the storm system should give 6" up to even 24" for the western side of Colorado, with westerly upslope flow. Not much will be happening here in the plains, other than a bit of rain or snow. Colder air will move in here on Sunday and Monday. One of these days, I will post a couple of maps regarding western snowpack values. Snowpack in the Pacific Northwest has been trending upward.

Today's GFS model runs are showing another -Weekend- snow storm possibility for Denver. Overall, this does make sense with the GEFS mean trough over Nevada/Utah at this time period. Today's 12z ECMWF is putting all the Pacific jet stream energy into one (deep) low pressure at Sioux Falls SD at this time frame. This particular ECMWF solution could change quite a bit though. Model runs have been changing a lot recently.

Snow cover is turquoise here. Oh, the fun stuff with GOES-16

If you are a fan of the NOAA-ESRL calculation of the NAO, this is about the most negative combination you can get with the NAO and AO.

Looks like Chicago O'Hare had 1/2 mile visibility for only 2 hrs (2 Metars total), along with 40-41 kt peak wind gusts. They had 3/4 mile visibility and -SN at other times. KORD 260651Z 01033G40KT 1/2SM R10L/4500V6000FT SN FG VV007 01/00 A2958 RMK AO2 PK WND 02040/0650 SLP023 SNINCR 1/4 P0001 T00060000 $ KORD 260551Z COR 02024G35KT 1/2SM R10L/5500VP6000FT SN FG VV007 01/01 A2958 RMK AO2 PK WND 03041/0530 SLP022 P0002 60029 4/003 T00060006 10028 20006 400440006 56015 $

Hoosier - scattered purple is on your way

Best guess might be look for Chicago NWS on twitter (thundersnow, short video), Spann on twitter (retweet of short thundersnow), search #ilwx or #iawx.

chicago-west area obs shows snow, snow, sleet, rain, rain, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing