Crispus

I was just assuming Friday would be a snow day for the kids here in Peoria, but at this point, I think I'd just prefer nothing. If it's not 7+", I don't want it, especially with a follow-up deep freeze that means the roads will be crappy until Wednesday. :-/

Local media reporting 6.5" official total for Peoria. Pretty good considering I didn't see flakes until nearly noon, and it was tapering off shortly after 6pm. I've shoveled, and yeah, that total's about what I would have guessed.

Finally starting to see my first few isolated flakes in Peoria.

No flakes yet in Peoria, IL. Rain has soaked into the ground for the most part, and I don't think we got anything in the way of ice (or at least, I don't see anything now). The winter storm warning still calls for 5-9" (since ILX didn't update it, as noted previously), but I've been entertained by seeing other site forecasts jumping around from 8" to 3" to 6" just in the past 10 hours. Meanwhile, I'm seeing people predictably complain about school being cancelled, since nothing's happened yet, even though anyone paying attention knew there would be a morning lull (though, I think most did think we'd be seeing snow by 10am).

I have some friends planning to drive from Peoria to the U of I game in Champaign tonight. They tried to convince me to go with 'em, but I didn't think it was a good idea. Feeling like I made the right call so far.

Sample picture of I-74 through Peoria from an hour ago (source: Facebook)

Graphic from ILX, posted 2 hours ago. If Peoria has 6 inches now, we're on track for the expected 9-13" (maybe - I'm not sure how much we had when this was posted). They're expecting snow to end by early afternoon, so looks like they're not expecting the second wave to reach us.

Wow, a 1% chance of greater than 3 feet!

ILX Discussion excerpt, from 10am: So...sounds like they're thinking rain for PIA. I saw weatherunderground went from 8 inches, to 4 inches, to 2 inches, now to an inch of rain.

Nah, I bet it'll hit us, it'll just stay all rain.

Not liking the trends from a Peoria standpoint, but if we're not going to get 6", I'd just as soon get as little as possible. Go big or go home away.

If this were snow, I'd be right with ya. Ice, though...I don't have a problem with forecasts being wrong about ice storms, especially with my driveway being about 15 degrees from being vertical (slight exaggeration).

Yeah, facebook just reminded me that we had a big snowfall here one year ago today. It was annoying then, and it'd be annoying now. I'm in spring mode, so I want this waste of a winter behind me. I resent stat-padding that'll make this awful winter look better than it was.

Here's a NA-specific site I've been using (in addition to the John Hopkins COVID dashboard). This one seems to get results updated faster than any other site I've checked, and it's easy to see the delta changes. Plus, there's a county breakdown: https://coronavirus.1point3acres.com/

Ugh, looking like another 1-3" for Peoria. Even if it magically stretches to 4", I don't want it, because I'm tired of these little nickel-and-dime snows. If we can't get 8"+, I'd rather skip it and go straight to spring.

I know they used to say 'knee high in July' regarding where corn was supposed to be, but in recent years the corn seems to be much higher than that in July. I assume this is due to new hybrids, genetic engineering, etc. Does that mean less time is needed nowadays for a crop? And if that's the case, does that mean planting late is not as big a deal as it used to be?

Yep, I know people who work at Cat buildings in that area. One told me that in his IT building, they've been told they might start working from home if the river hits 29'. One of the other factory buildings is only 15' above the river, so it might be half submerged if the levee breaks or overflows. The levee is supposedly in good shape, recently inspected, but who knows.

I thought they were calling for it to crest at 27' at least two days ago, so I was a little surprised it was only bumped to 27.5' today. If it's cresting in Peoria on Sunday, and the more significant rain wouldn't come until Tuesday-Wednesday...it's something to keep an eye on, but not sure it'll surpass the record.

On the plus side, if you slip and fall off the roof, you won't fall far and you have a nice cushion beneath you.