WestMichigan

Only made it down to 10 at my house this morning. Lake Michigan doing its thing keeping us warmer. Continual light snow over the last few days is finally adding up. I didn't realize this but GRR is within 1.3" of their entire snowfall last year. Compared to others in the subforum it is a virtual snowmageddon in West Michigan.

You know it is ban when the pahandle of Florida outperforms nearly all of our forum on the 12Z Euro.

You can tell this NWS forecaster has been in the Michigan area for a while. On the other side of today`s forecast challenge, to the southeast of Grand Haven and Big Rapids, we are going increasingly sunny through the day. It can be an occupational hazard to go optimistic with sun in January when we are socked in with clouds early in the morning, but there are some reasonably large holes in the clouds opening up on satellite, and some of the clouds are already thin enough to see the moon through. Weak subsidence due to the high/ridging today should continue to erode the cloud cover, while increasing south winds will make an attempt to bring that drier and cloud-free air in northern Indiana/Ohio our way.

Aren't we all

Grew up in Caldwell, OH and moved here from the Columbus, OH area in 2010.

I can't agree with you more. After watching my hometown in SE Ohio get a double digit storm yesterday I am ready for something like that here.

WAD or CAD both are a precip nightmare. Hoping things turn around soon or this summer is going to be ugly.

Have to like the 18Z NAM doughnut hole over Noble County.

Michsnowfreak is trying hard to reel this one in.

Picked up a surprise 1-2" overnight as the LES bands came inland more than expected. Closer to the lakeshore there was about 4" in Zeeland where I work. Guessing even more in Holland and points south from there.

Living on a near treeless hilltop I have absolutely no idea how much snow fell yesterday and today. This morning I had bare ground and drifts over the top of my snow plow. I am gong to have to go with the NWS average for my area but with less wind today I am sure the bare ground is getting covered up. Sure looks like winter out there. These pics are from last night. I didn't get any pics this morning.

Wind and snow reducing visibility to under 1/4 mile at times. Roads are a mess after the slightly above freezing temperatures yesterday. Looks like it will be a fun ride home tonight. Hopefully we can keep the winds from turning too far NW longer than the models are predicting and get in on the LES for a longer period of time.

A little different story on this side of the lake. Confidence is relatively high for major travel impacts over wrn Lwr MI on Wednesday due to a combination snow showers (heavy at times), blowing snow, winds gusting to 40-50 mph, and falling temps. Frequent whiteouts and abruptly plummeting temps will lead to treacherous/icy roadways and conditions in which we often see numerous slide offs and sometimes even multi-car pile ups on the major interstates/highways. Total snow amounts are a bit more uncertain though since the high winds on Wednesday will spread the snow out, sending multi-bands well inland. This will probably limit amounts at the immediate shoreline with displacement of higher totals farther inland toward the US 131 corridor. Even where amounts are not too excessive though, feel the combo of elements and occasional whiteouts/squalls/near blizzard conditions warrants having a warning out on Wednesday.

5.7” at GRR and probably closer to 5” at my place. Nice seeing it completely white outside for the first time this year. It was definitely a very dry fluffy snow which is very different than all the wet snow we have had so far this year.

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Now if only the GFS can be believed which we all know is next to impossible. Even Chicago would see something from this. The Ohio Valley is left out, but if this happens their time may come. The positive thing from this is that it looks like cold air will finally make a return to at least parts of the subforum.

That was a good one. As we drove from Hilliard to the SE corner of the state it went from snow to freezing rain to just plain rain. Came home to a snow covered driveway encased in ice. It was a pain to shovel that mess off my driveway.

The wind in my back yard peaked a little before the cold front came through. Highest gust was 68MPH this morning at 5:45.

GRR jumping all in on the wind event with this next one. I recorded 64MPH with the last one. Don't really want anything higher like they are saying. We are issuing, with this forecast package, a High Wind Watch from 7 pm Wednesday till 1 pm Thursday for all but the I-69 area. The HREF ensemble mean wind gust forecast has 60 to 65 mph forecast at 1 am Thursday from South Haven to north of the of Traverse City. With the last event, on the 11th, it had a small area of 50 to 55 mph south of Grand Haven. As it turned out, it was low by 10 to 15 mph based on our observations. Given that and that ECMWF has gusts to 60 from Holland north and the GFS has 60 mph all the way east to I-75 and 63 mph to 69 mph west of US-131, it makes sense to have a High Wind Watch for all but the SE CWA (I-69). The strongest winds will be from around 10 pm (ish) to 7 am (ish). The model forecasts have been very persistent with this idea of very strong winds Thursday morning. That is the key message from this forecast package, high winds Thursday morning. As we have been writing about in all of our recent AFDs, we have a rapidly deepening surface low that tracks from eastern Colorado tomorrow morning to north of Lake Superior by 7 am Thursday morning. The upper level wave goes negative tilt tomorrow (which explains the rapid deepening). There is a significant trop fold with this system too. The results of this is the forecast wind fields significantly strong for this storm than they were for the system we had on Saturday the 11th. At Grand Rapids, the 925 mb wind is 10 knots higher than the previous event. Over our northwest CWA the wind field is 20+ knots strong at 925 mb and 850 mb and at least 10 to 20 knots stronger near the surface. Remember we had gusts in the 60 to 65 mph range near the coast with that storm, 50 to 60 mph inland. I would expect higher gusts with this event than with that previous event.

Nice look fo rthe SE OH and WV crew. I realize that is approaching the Mid Atlantic forum but decent look over the spine of the Appalachians in WV and PA.

Looks like a quick 2-3" passing through West Michigan later on. It would be nice to have this pattern set up again later on when it is a little colder and the snow would stick around. November will definitely be above normal for snowfall.

Picked up about 2" of very wet snow on Friday when the forecast wasn't calling for much of anything. Then yesterday they issued an advisory for 1"-3" and picked up about 0.1". Nice to get that first inch of the year on the record.

Probably saw more lightning on my way in to work this morning that I saw nearly all of this summer combined. There was quite the light show to the west and north west of the lakeshore this morning along with reports of some pretty heavy rain. Clear skies in my area really highlighted the clouds and lightning.

GRR is starting to get onboard with this event. An uptick in the snow is expected on Sunday as the core of the cold air moves through with the potential for a clipper type low or sharp upper shortwave trough enhancing the snow. This feature is shearing out as it gets absorbed into the circulation of the big upper low with snow showers diminishing on Monday as it moves east and heights begin to rise. A general 1 to 3 inch snow event could be expected by that time.

Saw my first flakes of the season this morning. Still have some outdoor work so the upcoming warm weather is welcome but it is almost time to switch to winter mode.