Chinook

This is the NWS analysis of the heavy snow recently

The dry slot developed quickly this afternoon. Here's a satellite picture with SLP when the rain/snow was getting going this afternoon for you guys

California is going to double its recent precipitation with a W Coast storm

I was going to say that rain above 5000ft at this point of the year is nuts. but I guess it's light snow at Greeley and accumulation in Denver, so that's something

my new 250mb jet stream loop to end off the month https://great-lakes-salsite.web.app/Jan_17_31_2024_250mb_loop.html

my thinking is that Ft. Collins/Loveland/Longmont averages over 50" and Boulder was like 76" other notes: up to 61 degrees in Alberta Canada today (also 60's at Lewistown/Great Falls Montana today and yesterday) SPC slight risk near San Antonio (probably not too much discussion needed unless somehow we get a tornado watch tomorrow) Obviously dew points of 50-60 in that area are unusual at this time of year.

I wonder how long you've been in Colorado? Like, I mean, normally Boulder gets plenty of enhanced snow rates, the Flatirons to the Front Range is set up nicely for that. The very strange omega-block pattern, with storminess near you guys, will set up as this Pacific jet energy will completely undercut the huge ridge. Undercutting a ridge is something that does happens during El Nino. This is just a weird one.

The models frequently have troubles with forecasting bigger storms at about 5-7 days. The problem is, you tend to think that they have a good forecast for wintertime scenarios if they have some consistency. Then like the last couple of days we saw, the consistency goes away as the models may shift important features such as precipitation. This is partly due to the fact that the models aren't perfect at any time. It's party due to the fact that the models ingest data from geostationary and other satellites. That's pretty much all you get from the Pacific, except for two upper air observations from Hawaii. And as the other guys said, you guys are definitely due some winter to spring snowstorms from El Nino. As you can see, there are no upper air observations from weather balloons off the coast. The models must gain weather information from GOES-WEST and low-orbit satellite types.

This is the storm that will lend its energy to the Western USA storm. And the models may or may not have read the upper air information from the Pacific really well. We will see what happens.

Model ensembles/NWS-WPC definitely have a lot of QPF for the West, including the Front Range

The Euro and Canadian both have the big storm next week. It's probably way too early to discuss details, but both of these models have temperatures at just freezing.

Toledo is up to 4.22" perhaps on the top-10 list but I'm not sure. On the positive side of things, there's no D1 drought category here anymore. Still hoping for some drought to be busted by El Nino systems in the Southwest, which could be upcoming

This is a strange weather pattern. There will be some version of an omega-block. Who knows how the snow/rain will happen in the Southwest.

It is certainly this is an interesting question. Another thing related to this: As of recent years, I heard advisories are going to be phased out of the NWS entirely 2024. But it's 2024 now. I wonder if somebody can comment on that Toledo had pea-soup fog with rain or drizzle in a lot of hours today

Hope you guys survived the storm.

here's a comparison of the precipitation type on Radarscope and GRLevel3. one Mping report says icy sidewalks at Fort Wayne

The newest HRRR says 0 to 0.15" freezing rain for Toledo and up into the 0.30" range north of town.

By the way I found this the other day. I don't believe I saw any observation of a -36 on the Platte River area in the entire time I lived there.

I think that areas that are already 6F or more below normal from Jan 1-21 don't have a big chance to turn it into a positive for the month, because it would take something like a +12F for Jan 22-31 to undo it.

freezing rain or "unknown precipitation" (possibly sleet) hitting the area

Highly varied areas had their lowest Jan 14-20 7-day average temperature

Freezing rain and sleet starting in Oklahoma, with maybe a bit of drizzle/32 in Texas

It's usually bad news if the GFS forecasts a lot of freezing rain. The NAM usually likes to overdo freezing rain QPF and/or freezing rain accumulation on ground.

This was HRRR sounding with the max CAPE for Lake Michigan today. This is significant, for wintertime, sfc-700mb CAPE. In the old days, it was difficult to get the NAM soundings to show this realistically. Hmm the values displayed on here are 53 J/kg for 3CAPE but 163 J/kg for MUCAPE, so that doesn't really match up. I don't really know how that happened.

My area got 1.5-2.0" with maybe a few bits of enhancement from Lake Huron, as the clouds and the light snow stuck around. Here's the radar with some storm reports around snowy Cleveland tonight.