ConvectiveIA

43 minutes ago, Ginx snewx said:

RI is a great state I would be happy to be annexed away from CT. Lol Lets do this!!

Not sure if this was what was meant but I lived in SE CT for years and the general flavor of that area is quite distinct from the rest of CT and shares a lot more similarities (and accent) with Rhode Island 

Excited about a nice little snowstorm likely to affect us tomorrow here. It might be one of our last here. I expect 2-3 inches imby. This has been a pretty amazing winter but I’m ready for spring and summer 

8 minutes ago, AppsRunner said:

All snow now and cement parking lot covered. 

Light covering on some paved surfaces downtown. Bottom edge looks to be lifting north out of town but it’s not that easy as the passage of the low has the movement of the precip shield sort of pivoting. I could see this easily filling back in for us but it’s hard to say 

Looks like DSM is being dry slotted now, if this structure could be called a dry slot. A few inches is advertised by models here, but that’s not going to happen if precipitation doesn’t fill back in as the low comes through

Looks like I was wrong. Latest RAP and NAM are quite a bit south with the heavy snow, bringing it well into the DSM metro

1 minute ago, AppsRunner said:

Still in the “I don’t know” section, but I feel decent about picking up 3” or so. Still a county away from blizzard warnings

You have a much better chance than we do 35 miles south but even with that said, I’m just not seeing a southward trend with this one and we’re at the nitty gritty now

Good chance to be mostly rain here too but I notice although the NAM just caved and headed north, the other models have inched south and we are now in the transition zone between rain and snow. So I have no real idea what will happen.

On 2/18/2019 at 11:15 AM, AppsRunner said:

No matter where it tracks, it seems like this is going to be a big one somewhere. The GFS seems to be on the west end of guidance, and the Canadian on the east. Should be an interesting one to track, but I wouldn't get invested until we're much closer. 

18z NAM drives a narrow band is very heavy snow right through us but for it to verify at this point is unlikely due to long range 

We have roughly 2 1/2 inches and the rug have been pulled out from underneath us. This is bad for weathermen because this storm was hyped around here and people are going to just be mad that they couldn’t call in to work like they planned 

18z models continuing to shift north and have really begun to remove us from the heaviest swath of snow at this point. I don’t think we are at all at risk for a 0 cirrus or anything but it’s not looking as hot now here

I already called out of work when we got that 5-6 inch storm Monday night. Now we have this.... and I’m supposed to work at 3 and I got rear wheel drive low rider. Major snow at least 8 inches new snow have fallen with some modest drifting because it’s downtown.

6 hours ago, hawkeye_wx said:

4-6+" of snow has fallen in the greater Des Moines area in only three hours tonight.

Even more now and it’s still coming down!

22 minutes ago, StormChaser4Life said:

Is it just me or does that snow band seem more north than models forecasted? Precip needs to fill in south or areas south of I80 are going to be in trouble. Hrrr and rap both show precip blowing up in the next few hours in MO but I'm skeptical 

Not sure but the snow is very heavy just south of I80 in Des Moines and we already have a few inches. The snow is expected to continue for upwards of 24 hours from now so to answer your question I’m pretty sure stuff will fill in south for us. Can’t say for sure areas east. 

20 hours ago, mimillman said:

I’ll be in Boston for this one, but hopefully we’ll have something fun to track for mid week.

Speaking of which, Boston hasn’t done great this year.

No it hasn’t at all. My sister lives near Hartford and they have barely got any snow this year

This event suggests a 6 inch snowfall here at home. We already have 4 inches on the ground now. Definitely the snowiest winter I’ve seen here since I moved here in early 2016

Just now, cyclone77 said:

The sleet has given way to mostly freezing rain the past hour or so, with a few rogue ice pellets now and again.  Looks like the change back over to snow won't occur till after midnight when the precip event is largely over.  

I think it’ll change over to snow in time for a good shot for you, the 00z RAP and HRRR hold onto this. We are a bit too far west to get the heavy snow here, looks like we will end at about 3 inches in DSM. Hang in there!

 We are staying in snow the whole system at our location on the west side of things, but it’s a question of whether we can break 3 inches before the storm pulls away. There’s another batch of heavy stuff headed our way so we will see, we got 2 to 2.5 inches in Des Moines now  

28 minutes ago, cyclone77 said:

It wasn't aggressive enough with the warm layer at 850mb.  The latest run has finally caught on though, and now keeps us all sleet and freezing rain until after midnight.  Using a 3:1 ratio for sleet, it's looking like 1-1.5" of sleet, but if some of that is freezing rain that will cut into that.  There is a smidge of freezing rain mixing in now, so wouldn't be surprised to see freezing rain become more dominant than sleet for awhile at some point.  

At least the sleet provides traction for drivers. But I am surprised after all the juicy eastern IA snowfall maps I saw today 

i called my job today and I was lucky the general manager gave me the night off because I have rear wheel drive and would get stranded with the amount of snow we are getting on the roads now 

Just now, Baum said:

starting as sleet. Not a good sign, as I'm guessing we go to freezing rain next....

Hmm. No backside heavy snow before it ends? 

And now it’s snowing very heavily with good flake size 

4 minutes ago, cyclone77 said:

HRRR/GFS looks like they will end up being incorrect in depicting a mostly snow event for this area.  So far sleet has dominated and the main surge of WAA is still on the way.  Good chance we get 1"+ sleet out of this.

I wonder why. Is the storm running any bit northwest of the latest model runs? It’s been a mix of snow and a bit of graupel since it started ripping at 1:45pm here. Seems like it’s been mostly straight snow here for awhile and looks like we have a good inch so far. 

Radar still looks like the heaviest snows are a county or so east of i35 but decent snows are extending west over our area and even a few counties west of that so the cutoff doesn’t appear to be tight with this. 

I’m going with 4.5 inches here just like the forecasts predict 

Snowing moderate to heavy for a little while now, close to 2 inches already. Flake size is small, but it is just dumping those small flakes intensively. 

Our snow depth isn’t quite as deep here as eastern Iowa. I know it gets deeper once you get close to Pella when I drive east. Here I’m Des Moines there’s about 8 inches give or take but it’s very crusted and dense

1 hour ago, hawkeye_wx said:

The UK is still pretty robust with the front-end thump over eastern Iowa.

I’ve come to learn I purchased the wrong kind of car for Iowa. Low profile tires and rear wheel drive. I have to drive to work Sunday evening and this shows enough snow to even cause trouble for me in DSM. And, I could easily see this system shifting south last minute. I love a good snowstorm but we already have a 7 inch snowpack and it’s not melting. I just don’t want to get stuck. 

I’m looking forward to the clipper time. That said I feel like my location is a bit far west for many of these events but we have gotten our lucky share of snow recently so the dustings we get will still by nice for mood