Geoboy645

Oh god the conspiracy nuts are back. 

Yeah I know. I was thinking more of the central to southern stretches of the river downstream of say Cedar Falls. 

I figured it was time to start this thread as we come up on the first spring flooding outlooks of the year. As of right now Spring Flooding could be a major concern across most of the sub. With an above-average snowpack with high water equivalency and deep frost depth this year could be an above average year for flooding. A quick melt by either a sharp warmup or a rainy cutter could potentially lead to March 2019 or April 1965 style flooding quite easily. Interesting thing to note that most analog years to this one pattern wise featured major flooding in the Midwest during Spring. 1965,2008, and 2011 are the most notable ones. If there is a plus it's that soil conditions aren't nearly as wet as last year and snowpack is average to below-average across the headwaters of the northern major rivers. River Basins I would particularly pay attention to this year are the Illinois, Rock, Fox (Illinois), Fox (Wisconsin), Wisconsin, Des Plaines, Wabash, Southern Cedar, Iowa and Des Moines, and Mississippi. When it comes to the Great Lakes I wouldn't be shocked if Lake Michigan-Huron starts breaking lake level records again after this spring. Especially if we get more snow to the east in Michigan. Overall this year is looking like a potentially bad one for the Midwest. 

TLDR: Bad flooding year possible for the Midwest.

Already our down to -3 at GRB. -12 is our point forecast tonight and we might get to an amazing temperature of 1 tomorrow for a high. We are supposed to have wind chills tonight down to -32. Tomorrow seems like a nice day to stay inside.

Now this is a sight you don't see everyday. 90% of Wisconsin has at least 6 inches of snow on the ground. Just wow. Ofc im in the one of the few areas with barely 6" on the ground cause why wouldnt I be? But man this just such an insane map.

12 hours ago, Hoosier said:

The New Orleans weenies want snow, not zr.

There are new orleans snow weenies? Now that's just being ridiculous. Oh also Houston and New Orleans getting ice would be a very bad day there. Also when's the last time there was ZR modeled in any part of Florida ever?

Just now, WaryWarren said:

The Direct Weather guy is usually a big , so he's in hog heaven right now. 

 

Oh god why would you bring that horror on to here? it's like every weenie all rolled up into one. It's just so so so bad.

Wow it is just cranking snow outside. Between 2 and now we have probably got at least 2" if not more. And it just keeps coming down. This is honestly some of the heaviest snowfall rates I ahve seen in daylight in quite a while. Too bad this is a shorter snow cause we could get some serious accumulations if this lasted for about 8 hours.

GRB just released WSW's for their entire CWA. Around here by Green Bay they are calling for 5-9" which seems pretty reasonable IMO. The wind probably won't be AS big of an issue here as further south but it will still be pretty bad. Fortuantley where I am at least is relatively protected being at the bottom of the Fox valley and all that. Still going to suck walking to classes though.

Gahh why does this have to happen now when I am not down there. We could be seriously reach 2nd or 3rd deepest snowpack on record in Madison. We won't break the record because 36" is insane, but over 2 feet is in serious play here. Talk about a turnaround

1 hour ago, hlcater said:

Holy mother of blocks

tHEre iS nO bLoCKiNg

I am definitely liking where I am sitting for this one. Some models have me getting close to a foot. That would be so nice up here. Man to have most of the state of Wisconsin have over 10" of snow OTG right before a massive cold outbreak would be awesome.

1 hour ago, CheeselandSkies said:

So strange. I went to UWGB and it was invariably snowier there than at home (Stoughton/Madison) except for 2007-08, my senior year, when we had some big storms over both areas (although GB area was less affected by the early Jan torch, so held on to its snowcover better).

It's been a function of the storm track more than anything. Green Bay has just been too far north for most of the year for storms. 

Yeah when it comes to snow depth there is a very large difference between Madison and Green Bay. At home I have over a foot of snow OTG. Here at college it's more like 4". Areas up to my north like Marinette have even less. This next storm could really add to our pack here though at least according to some models. I could be at 8-9" before the cold wave and home could have at least 16".

Just now, Hoosier said:

Still could change but this airmass looks pretty potent.  I know some here aren't fans of extreme cold, but from my point of view, I wish we could've brought this in during January for maximum effect.  Not that it can't get extremely cold in February (especially early in the month) but generally speaking the coldest records are in January, especially outside of the northern tier.

On the other hand, in February it is a bit easier to break records because it doens't usually have these mega cold outbreaks

One thing about this system, if it does cut like it's modeled we could be in for a really bad time for flooding. 40's/50's with rain on top of a snowpack of potentially 12-18" over a large area sounds like a good way to get major flooding. Add in the frozen ground and ice on the lakes and yeah it's not looking good. To make matters worse, after this storm we could get really really cold. Like 2019 cold wave cold. I could easily see a situation where we have march 2019 style flooding with massive ice jams and then everything just refreezes. Hopefully this doesn't happen.

Well this storm overperformed here. I was originally forecasted to have 2-4" but I ended up with about 7" with quite a bit of drifting and blowing. A fluffier snow too which was nice fo shoveling. This 7" means that our snowmobile trails will be able to open which will be nice. I say I probably have 9-10" OTG now. This pack should last at least to the end of the week.

40 minutes ago, MIstorm97 said:

Cancelling my pivotal plus and wxbell (lol) subscriptions right now

What about Bamwx. They seem like a reputable site.

7 minutes ago, CheeselandSkies said:

Except the 5" difference for Madison, lol. I've seen anything from over 9" to less than 0.5" on the solutions posted within just the last couple hours. @madwx, make it make sense!

That cutoff on the para would be so painful. You guys get 9 while I get like 3. That would suck if that actually happened.

4 minutes ago, Angrysummons said:

Yeah, it does. Show me the phasing. That is the key for this system. Without it, it ends up a strung out turd with modest wet snow. You need the phase to ring out the wash cloth.

Just now, Angrysummons said:

Again, show a phase that brings the snow outside GEFS/EPS runs that are programmed with the "what if". The energy doesn't look that strong frankly. That is the problem. Without phasing, your sunk boy.

Phasing? This event doesn't involve phasing.

Honestly if I were you guys in chicago I'd be quite happy rn. The models are quite obviously underdoing QPF and with most of them still having the band basically over the city I wouldn't be surprised if you guys eke out some surprising amounts as things stand right now.

3 minutes ago, madwx said:

more power plant effect snow streaming SE from Portage

Oh no wonder why it's still snowing. Such a weird phenomenon when this happens. I wonder how much of an effect if any the 80 degree Lake Columbia right next to it has on this.

10 minutes ago, michsnowfreak said:

 As mentioned above, I am not sure though 100 number comes from everything I looked at showed an average of 88 days for Minneapolis. Obviously it's still double Chicago. As for 2014, im shocked the snow depth with that low in Chicago. I know others have complained about measuring at ORD, I wonder if it was too low? Detroit spent the entire months of both Feb 2014 and Feb 2015 with double digit depth.  Each year it lingered well into March as well.

I mean 13-14 was like that here too. Madison never reached a foot of snowpack the entire winter which is pretty surprising all things considered. Then again we didn't quite get the major storms that either Chicago or Detroit had. We "only" had 57" that winter.

2 hours ago, madwx said:

Honestly you just need to move up to Madison, we've had snow cover since December 12, average 51" of snow per year.  Just enough torches to keep things interesting.

That really has been the saving grace of this winter so far. The fact that outside of the 3-4 days around christmas (beacuse ofc it was) we have had at least an inch or two on the ground since then. Which has made this dull stretch a lot more bearable then it otherwise would be.