CheeselandSkies

I bet Beavis would have thoroughly loved the Midwest winters of the late '70s. I'm not sure if he's old enough that he remembers them from his childhood or what (I'm about ten years too young for that) but one of my other hobbies is railfanning, and I've often seen photos from that era of train crews battling huge piles of snow. In fact, those winters contributed to crippling the already struggling Milwaukee Road (Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad) leading to its demise in the mid-'80s. I could see how someone who came of age in that era could get the impression that was "normal" climo for a 40-44°N winter. My main interest in weather is severe local storms (and chasing them) so I'm here to discuss that. Of course that requires warm, humid conditions to thrive, so to me a Wisconsin winter is something to be endured/tolerated only because it leads into spring chase season (which hasn't exactly been blockbuster in most recent years, either). I can appreciate a good photogenic snowfall or ice event, but not if I have to travel in it and I certainly could do without my constantly bleeding/itching knuckles on days like today.

That's gonna be the first thing to melt and fall off... my wife would think that's funny.

Wonder if this is going to be one of those situations where the Beltline and points south end up with substantially more snow than the official airport total. Big pileup in Rock County yesterday attributed to white-out conditions from clipper squall, although to my knowledge no SSW ever issued.

My apologies. Every single Midwest winter has gone this way since I joined ('17-'18 and since).

0Z HRRR has us getting 8.2" (Kuchera, and I think this will be fluffier than 10:1) by 12Z Sunday.

I'll take a "volatile" weather pattern any day. Endless CAD/WAD/AA-but-still-chilly and overcast are the worst.

Looks like the band of heavy returns pushing up this way from Illinois almost completely dissipated.

Knew the atmosphere was gonna find some way to make me regret not chasing today. Sent from my Pixel 4a using Tapatalk

Like last night's 00Z, the 3KM CAPE on the 12Z HRRR is...noteworthy.

Marginal-equivalent probabilities were extended into far SE WI (actually, 5% hail contour extended further) for 1/7/2008, although the category didn't exist back then. EF3 with a 10-mile path hit in Walworth and Kenosha Counties. https://www.spc.noaa.gov/products/outlook/archive/2008/day1otlk_20080107_2000.html

DMX not entirely sold:

@madwx So GFS gives us 10.9" in this period, what do you figure that works out to IRL? 1.5" to DAB?

Not until after sunset yesterday. Forecast as of Friday morning was for sunshine most of the weekend. Crystal-clear now, though.

Had to scrape frost off my car windows before going into work this morning. I thought we were in a torch?

I have a T-shirt I got from the cannon at a Milwaukee Bucks game, has the team logo on the front and the Gruber logo and "One call, that's all!" slogan on the back.

Well 2012 was a lousy severe weather season because it never rained, let alone stormed, from about March through sometime in September. I think there were only four tornadoes in Wisconsin all year. Since then I became a firm believer that we need to have a snowback to melt off in the spring in order to not set the table for a drought.

Had something like that in 2009. Cutoff upper low parked over the OH Valley and refused to move or dissipate for what felt like at least 3 weeks.

WaPo with the twofer in this headline: https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2023/01/04/california-bomb-cyclone-atmosheric-river/

Not just in WI, but the Plains and Midwest in general (although northern IL did have an active streak particularly from 2015-'16). Granted I could have seen several tornadoes in the last couple years if not for boneheaded decisions at the last minute for which I have only myself to blame, but it would be nice to have more than 2-4 legit opportunities (that don't immediately go to linear or clustery crap like 5/30 and 6/15/22) per season. Seems the only quality events are the sneaky and/or out-of-season ones, like yesterday in central IL.

A lot like wasting most of April-June with a chilly eastern trough, a giant death ridge, weak split flow, or similar such patterns that are blatantly hostile to severe weather in the central US.

Early Jan. 2021 was when we had something like four straight days of freezing fog creating rime ice on everything. They're still the most recent photos in my winter wx Flickr album.

At least one more, somewhat more substantial and photogenic tornado has occurred in central Illinois.

Brief, skinny tornado reported/photographed with this just south of the ILX radar site.

Jelly...