Chinook

The extended range forecast out to 2 weeks in the future looks quite cool for the Midwest. The Day-3 (Easter Sunday) forecast as well as Wed March 30 look like possible severe weather setups. Otherwise the severe weather may be very close to the Gulf of Mexico or there may be none at all for 3-4 days in a row.

It seems like Monday and Tuesday may be slight risk days. Currently the SPC is discussing these days but there are no 15% highlighted areas on the extended outlook maps. The GFS shows medium instability, 1000-2000 J/kg, through parts of the southern Plains, Monday afternoon. As for dynamics, there is a weaker shortwave near Goodland KS, and a strong 500mb jet moving in through northern Mexico into Texas on Tuesday.

Looks like severe season for central Oklahoma just started with a severe thunderstorm watch issued tonight, and a recent wind gust to 58mph.

My dad in Toledo said they just got 4" since the changeover last night, which was their BIGGEST snow day of the SEASON.

Cleveland heavy snow squall that has developed on the pre-cold front (i.e. there are 2 fronts noted on the WPC surface analysis. The one up by Lake Huron is where the real arctic air is.)

The squall is tracking over the lake now, passing Port Clinton right now.

Local storm reports in the CLE area, Feb 10 to 11

115-mile long band of heavy snow, stretching westward into non-lake-effect-snow territory of Norwalk and Clyde

Sorry about the jumpiness. I did the best I could. I was intending to use UCAR/RAP national radar images, but that web site broke down for a few hours during the storm. Nice satellite/radar/500mb loops!

I made this radar loop so that we would be able to see the storm's features from start to finish. It starts January 22, 0018z, which is when it was transitioning to being a snowstorm for some areas of the South. http://www.greatlakes.salsite.com/Blizzard_of_2016_radar_loop.html

Northeasterly wind lake effect snow... I have still never seen northeasterly wind LES hit Toledo in 20 years of watching the weather

Question: both snowfall with 10-1 snow/liquid ratio with the 4km NAM, 12z run. What is going on with the wiggliness of the Pivotalweather.com depiction of this?

Even though the models have trended east/ with more snow into Indiana, it will likely not be a snowstorm for NW Ohio, not of much impact anyway. The surface to 925mb winds should be pretty strong out of the NW- probably lots of gusts over 25mph for open areas, 12z Sunday to 06z Monday, maybe with some steady snow or flurries. I suppose the LES may visit Cleveland. Note: the 06z GFS and the 12z GFS don't quite agree on wind direction after the storm-- perhaps this means more uncertainty for Cleveland LES. 90 hr GFS sounding over western Lake Erie-- potential for 100-200 J/kg of lake-CAPE, winds at 300 degrees NW. (?)

One of the cool things available now is the Sharppy soundings directly off of the forecast maps on both College of Dupage and Pivotalweather.com. These could be quite helpful for future lake-effect snow scenarios. College of Dupage web site also allows you to view sounding text after generating a sounding. I was playing around with generating a NAM sounding over Lake Erie tomorrow. Pivotalweather allows soundings from the 4km NAM and HRRR too. Unfortunately it doesn't allow adjustments for warm lake temperatures that are above the 2m temperature.

I believe CLE had the 4th warmest November at 48.6 degrees (plus or minus a tenth or so)

GFS is showing some strong winds for the middle of Lake Erie. The NWS zone forecast offshore from Cleveland has 27kt gusting to 36kt Saturday. GFS shows 45kt close to the surface (950mb), Saturday, before the cold sector.

Keeping the lake warm only helps the snowlovers if there is a cold airmass aloft to create the lake effect snow. Personally, I like walking on a frozen Lake Erie, you know, like 5 feet from the shoreline.

NW Ohio and NE Indiana both had a very wet summer compared to average. These areas were among the wettest in the country, considering climate division precipitation rankings. NW Ohio climate division had the record wettest summer. link to NOAA (similar plot) http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/service/national/divisionalpcpnrank/201506-201508.gif Summer precipitation in Ohio ranked 114 out of 121 (i.e. it was the 8th wettest summer in 121 years) http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/service/national/statewidepcpnrank/201506-201508.gif

NWS 4-km precipitation analysis available here (for free) http://models.weatherbell.com/hrap/nws_precip.php shows that Toledo has had 9-11 inches of rain in 30 days (as of a couple of days ago) and Cleveland has had 9-13 inches. That's huge!

tornado reported on a second supercell that has tracked southeast of Hallam/Princeton Nebraska

Wenesday could be pretty active, as a shortwave will kick out from the southwest into the Plains from Tuesday to Wednesday. The NAM and GFS show plenty of rain in the southern Plains on Wednesday, perhaps meaning that broad-scale convection could hurt chances of destabilization.

hail size and VIL are large (3.52" and 127 kg/m2) on this storm south of Lincoln Nebraska

Yesterday's long-range GFS came up with a fantasy storm for mid-Lake Erie to Windsor ONT. Today, fantasy for CLE-BUF.

NWS point&click and MEX-MOS has 4 out the next 5 mornings at or below 0 for Toledo area. The average low for these days is 23!

Toledo is just 0.7" away from tying the record snowiest February. (25.2" and 25.1" are the top 2, separated by 111 years)