Hoosier

Come on, where is the optimism? I will take the over and say that ORD will be comfortably into double digits by the end of the month.

So not surprisingly given my location compared to yours, the snows have been much better timed with daylight. However temps have been a bit of an issue both times. The Halloween event was too warm to stick to most paved surfaces and the Veterans Day storm did eventually stick to paved surfaces but not at first and the overall total was small.

Op GFS is basically going full blast with arctic outbreak next week. Doesn't have a whole lot of ensemble support though.

I think this may be due to not having a stronger ENSO signal. When it's a stronger Nino or Nina, people can sort of play the odds. Hanging around neutral is a different ball game.

Lock it in, folks. Lock it in.

There were big storms there at the end of October and November in 1991. The first one was bigger though.

Chicago has recorded 47.99" of precipitation through November 30, which means that 2.88" is needed to break the all-time record. In 148 years of weather records, Chicago has recorded over 2.88" of precip in December a total of 30 times (30/148=20.3%). Average December precip is 2.25" and CPC has increased probabilities of a wetter than average December, so we'll see if it can be achieved. A more likely outcome would be to surpass 50" but fall short of the top spot, but that's not as cool so hopefully the record is broken.

Insane pics Bo.

I knew beavis could only hold back for so long. That was a relatively tame "rant" though. There is some hope later in the month I think. Not that it's absolutely impossible to fumble into a snow event in the first 10-15 days of the month, but better chance for more sustained winter weather should come after.

CFS didn't go the way that most of us would have wanted in the last few runs. Looking at the weeklies, it has a colder turn later in the month though.

Yeah, that really stands out. Probably not an entirely random occurrence.

On another note, Chicago is chasing some history in the form of the wettest year on record. A drier than average November has set things back a bit but still currently in 5th place. Wettest years on record: 2008: 50.86" 2011: 49.83" 1983: 49.35" 2018: 49.23" 2019: 47.62" and counting

After the current storm goes by, things look to settle down a bit. Real concern that a large chunk of the month is blah.

Yeah these early snow correlations don't really tell a whole lot, particularly the one I posted. Somebody posted about October snows not being a good sign for Chicago, but then when you extend it to snowiest starts by November 15 (the one I posted in Don's thread) it is much more of a mixed result.

Don S winter thoughts. Don't read if you like snowy winters

Thanks for your thoughts, Don. Chicago had its 2nd snowiest start to the season when looking at snow amounts through November 15. I ran the numbers on the 10 snowiest starts for Chicago (through Nov 15) and guess what, 5 years finished snowier than average and 5 had less snow than average. Given where ORD is at right now, it will likely be hard to hold them down in the low end of that range but certainly a mediocre season is not only conceivable, but well within the realm of possibility.

Warm holidays are the worst. Thankfully the Euro weeklies are pretty hit or miss that far out.

See my above post. Wow. Lol

Just waiting for the first "see, I knew getting that early snow was a bad sign for winter."

If you're in northern IL you look at this and think hey, maybe a decent snow on the way. Nope

Agree. Not warm in the means but looks like a table scraps pattern for much of the central/southern sub for a while. Not so unusual I guess for late November/early December.

Sad to watch the moisture coming out of Texas go poof

The revenge of Minneapolis.

I think it's always a concern in a progression like this that the snow threats will sort of skip over. Locally I am not expecting much for the next week or two (would love to be wrong about that). 2 snows have my seasonal total at 3.5"... above average to date but it feels a little underwhelming compared to what other areas in the region have received. I have to keep reminding myself that we aren't even into December yet.

Probably want less longitudinal distance between the Canadian low and the system emerging into the Plains if you want a farther south track. Compare where these features were on yesterday's 12z GFS and now.