Geoboy645

The fantasy hours GFS wants to keep demolishing the northern parts of the forum apparently.

I don't know what's funnier about that GFS run. MSP having 68" out to 384 hrs or Chicago having 0.5" in that same timespan.

Meanwhile up in Madison they are up to 38.9" for the season after this last snowstorm. I would consider this season to be kind of a weird category of a warm and snowy season. We've been pretty consistently at least a little bit above average even with the long dry periods all winter despite it being so warm. 2012-13 has been a pretty good analog to this winter with the very tight gradient between Madison and the Chicago area. Sans the 20" storm in December obviously.

Looking to be 2-4" here for accumulation. A decent little hit but man if we had a typical February airmass this would be a 12"+ hit for the 151-41 corridor. This is the perfect track for that corridor with a low just north of Chicago. Still going to be a decent hit, but it is a little frustrating having such a great track at the perfect time of year be so marginal.

Tonight feels like a major overperformer with cold in the northern parts of the subforum. Especially in the areas of recent snowfall the last few days, and up north where they have 12"+ OTG. Basically no wind, clear skies, and fresh, semi-deep to deep snowpack. You can't have a better combo for radiational cooling and cold air drainage. Black River Falls is already down to -19 and that's the 10pm obs with several hours of CAD to go. Madison is down to -2 with the fresh snowpack around there. There are probably going to be spots breaking -25 tonight in the usual CAD areas.

Looks like Madison and Milwaukee's final totals ended up at 7.3 and 7.9 respectively for this storm. With Madison having a single-day total of 6.4, which is the largest single-day total since 4/17/18 there. That's pretty crazy it's been that long. And there are widespread 9" totals across most of Madison. Definitely our largest single storm in the area since 2019. The last 3 winters were pretty much all nickel and diming.

It's been snowing pretty constantly here since about this time yesterday. We haven't had much accumulation, at most 2.5". But it has been a really pretty snowfall. That perfect rate of snowfall where it's more than mood flakes, but not heavy enough to be a visibility concern. Just a perfect snowy late January day. What more can you ask for in some ways?

Don't look now, but there's some indications on the models that we could see a serious cold shot right around the end of the month. Giving some 2019 vibes, without the snow ahead of time.

MKX put out their graphics for this storm. 4-6" would be a nice hit here, although I really don't like being so close to the gradient like that. This would basically be undoing the last few weeks of warmth when it comes to our totals and send us right back to being above average which would be really nice as well.

Yeah as of right now it looks like that the Madison area will be just a bit too far south for this. If I had to guess this is probably going to end up being a La Crosse-Stevens Point-Shawano-Marinette corridor hit. Green Bay will probably end up right on the gradient with a few inches while Pulaski gets slammed, again. The maximum amounts always seem to follow the northern edge of the bay in the slightly higher terrain N and W of the Fox Valley.

2022 was basically dead average at Madison. Ended with a yearly mean of 47.0 compared to the 30 year avg of... 47.0. Total rainfall was 37.37" which was all of .24" above normal. To have two stats end up right at the average is pretty hard to do, especially nowadays. Now granted, if you compare our 37 inches of rain to our pre-1990 precipitation state it ends up being one of the wetter years on record. Shows how much wetter we have become over the last 30 years. Top 8 events personally in no particular order: 1. Early Summer heat. The mid-May heatwave broke several daily records and included a 3-day stretch of 90+ degree highs in mid-May which is insane. Also included one of Madison's earliest 70+ degree lows as well. The mid-June heatwave wasn't as significant with anomalies and records, but did feature our first 96+ degree high since 2012. We were actually keeping pace with 2012 for 90 degree highs at one point before the pattern switched and we ended up being like the only area in the entire country to have a normal summer. 2. March and April rain. After a very dry January and February the pattern flipped with the storm on 3/5. The next month and a half was very wet, especially in the northeastern part of Wisconsin. Green Bay ended up recording their wettest March on record and had over 9.5 inches of rain in a month and a half. It seemed like there were puddles on campus for 3 weeks straight. It just never stopped raining. 3. Sunny January. Last January seemed to be way more sunny than usual because it was so dry. We had what seemed like a week straight of sun or near sun, which is very unusual for January. Especially considering it really wasn't that cold out either. 4. 6/15 Tornado Outbreak. June 15th was a pretty significant severe weather day. While it ended up being kind of a bust, it was still one of GRB's largest tornado outbreak days and was our first 15% tornado risk since 7/19/19. Ended up with 13 tornadoes. 2 EF2's, 10 EF1's and 1 EF0. The Wyeville EF2 ended up tracking almost 23 miles, becoming Wisconsin's longest-tracked tornado since Chetek in 2017. 5. 10/12 Tornado Outbreak. A very unusual mid-October tornado outbreak. A very strange event. Came out of nowhere with no real indications for tornadoes that day with highs only in the 50's and 60's and rain. Only occurred over about an hour or so. Ended up with 7 EF0's including Milwaukee County's first tornado since 2000. 6. Late October and early November warmth. For the third year in a row we had significant warmth in late October and Early November. Had 3 seperate periods of consecutive 70 degree highs and ended up breaking a few daily records. It was very nice to be able to do outdoor stuff so late in the year, again. Not as crazy as November 2020, but overall still pretty unusual. The fact that this is the 3rd year in a row we have had 70+ degree highs as late as the 2nd week of November is crazy as well. 7. Pre-Christmas storm. While not super special in the snow department with only getting about 5 inches of snow, but the combination of blowing snow and temperatures was easily our most significant since Feburary 2019. Led to our first legit white christmas in 6 years. I am really glad that we didn't end up having the predicited snow totals from those earlier runs. We'd probably have been still digging out until this last weekend even with the warm temperatures. 8. September Cutoff Low. Was a pretty significant rain event in the SE of the state. Rain totals over 2 inches occurred over most of the state, with areas of 5+ around Milwaukee and 9+ north of Racine. Wasn't that big of a flooding event outside of Racine however, as the dry antecedent conditions meant that soils and rivers were able to take in most of the rain with only a few small rises.

Just a bit of range here MKX...

MKX just pulled the trigger on WS watches as well. The wording is some of the strongest wording that I have seen in a watch since probably 12/20/12.

Obviously it's Kuchera and the GFS at 141 hours out. But if that run verified every non-LES snow record in this state gets obliterated. Coupled with the cold and wind and we go full Ragnarok here. It would be the storm to end all storms for Wisconsin.

Posting for posterity:

Meanwhile up here by Green Bay it is still raining. It's been pouring all night with no real sign of changeover. Just constant rainfall while areas no more than 20 miles west are puking snow. Love it, I really just love it.

MKX has really upped the totals since yesterday. Went from a trace to 1 to now 2-5 in Madison and 3-6 north. Pretty good uptrend and it'll be nice to have an actual snowpack down in most of the area.

Probably pretty bad as well. The warm part tomorrow is supposed to drop about an inch of rain which means the roads will be pretty frozen when the changeover happens. We also should have a decent amount of wind with this as well. Thursday morning's commute is going to suck.

So uhh how about that NAM run? Most of the state gets 6"+ except for ...Green Bay and the Lakeshore... Right where I'm at. Yay... At least it'll be a good snowpack at home before the deep freeze.

This upcoming cold blast is reminding me of the Holiday cold blast in 2017-18. Similar timing, and we may also be very cold with essentially bare ground. I really hope we get at least some snow before it, but it's looking pretty doubtful at this point.

Ended up snowing pretty much the entire day yesterday here. Most of it was white rain though, with only about an inch accumulation when it cooled off overnight. This is would be a pretty good setup in about another month, easily could've gotten 5-6 inches or more if it was colder at the surface.

Moving this to the right topic. Something pretty weird could happen in this timeframe. We might get a lake-effect event on the west side of Green Bay. It is pretty hard to get any lake effect off of Green Bay period, as there is only a few weeks where it is still open and cold enough for snow. But to get the wind out of the right direction to get it on the west side of the bay is pretty rare. I don't know exactly how common this is, but I'm estimating this probably only happens a couple of times a decade.

I mean we have had bad experiences with this type of setup before. 8/21/18 was pretty close to this with the storm motions being slow and parallel to a stationary front. That dropped 15 inches in one night. So better to be a little high on the expectations imo.

Uhhh so apparently Southern Wisconsin is under a day 2 mdt for flash flooding. ...Great Lakes... Convection should be ongoing Sunday morning across portions of IA/WI/IL. By this time activity should be getting more progressive in nature and probably on a bit of a downward trend in intensity. Thus the flash flood risk, which is higher Saturday night, should be waning Sunday morning, before picking up later in the day. This activity will then push across central/southern MI during the day and evening. PWs over MI will be near record values, so this convection will pose some flash flood risk. At this time tend to think the progressive nature of cells will keep the risk more isolated in nature, but something to keep an eye on as convective evolution/placement becomes more clear. The bigger flash flood risk may end up evolving Sunday night into early Monday over portions of northeast IA into southern/central WI and northern IL. A strong mid level shortwave will eject east out of the Northern Plains Sunday night, increasing ascent along the stalled out boundary and expanding the instability pool back northward. Right entrance upper jet dynamics and an increasing low level jet into the front will also play a role in likely increasing convective coverage and organization over these areas Sunday night. The system is progressive as a whole, which will put a limit on rainfall duration. However thickness diffluence and weak Corfidi Vectors support some backbuilding/training into the increasing low level jet...so some increased rainfall duration appears probable. The low-level inflow is stronger on day 2 than day 1, and exceeds the mean 850-400 hPa wind by more, so for portions of southern WI, this appears to be the worse heavy rain/flash flood day, even if it's not explicitly forecast in the model QPFs. Meanwhile PWs should remain over 2" and near record values. Thus the ingredients seem to be there for another round of potentially significant rainfall, with hourly rain totals to 3" possible where cells train or mesocyclones track. There is some uncertainty on timing of the approaching wave and the position of the low level boundary. Nonetheless, some areas could see heavy rainfall for a second day and some potential exists for 3-5"+ type rainfall amounts Sunday/Sunday night over portions of northeast IA, central and southern WI, and possibly northern IL. Between days 1-2, localized storm totals of 10-14" cannot be ruled out, which if it unfolded would be similar in magnitude to the other significant flash flood/heavy rain events since late July in St. Louis MO, Southern IL, and Eastern KY. Per coordination with the MKX/Milwaukee WI forecast office, a Moderate Risk was hoisted for southern WI for Sunday into Sunday night. There's still a chance that a MDT to match could be raised later day for the day 1 period (ending Sunday morning), depending upon convective trends later today and tonight. A High Risk at some point for areas near southern WI can't be ruled out, depending upon how the convection evolves later today through Sunday night. I've seen this type of event before, this is how we get our major summer flooding events like August 18 or June 08. And it hasn't even been that wet here either, so it is really crazy seeing a potential upgrade to High Risk mentioned.

February 28th: After several cold waves of respectable intensity it's disappointing to not get to at least -15. All in all looking like a forgettable winter with no real cold and pretty lame stormwise as well.