CheeselandSkies

GFS has been hanging on to the idea of western troughing late in the runs but of course details all over the place and of course it loves always showing a big suppressive cold high ready to plunge down and crush any cyclone that tries to spin up. You'd think with a belt of 90-100kt southwesterlies at 500mb draped across the CONUS east of the Rockies something interesting would happen, but .

When I was a kid I read Laura Ingalls Wilder's Prairie series including "The Long Winter," which describes massive, sudden blizzards in the Dakotas occurring seemingly every few days from October 1880 to March 1881. I want to know what a winter like that would look like in the present day; on forecast models and real-time weather products. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blizzard#The_Snow_Winter_of_1880–1881

Well I had suspected the region might be in line for a "kitchen sink" winter storm similar to late February 2017, and we're certainly getting that; but no prospect of a outbreak a few days later.

The longest 8 weeks...

Barely had to scrape off my car at all before leaving work to get food on my break; mostly just brushed off some dusty sleet. Seems the generally anemic rates plus the breezy conditions really limited our accretion. Some of the earlier model runs had me thinking it might be like that day in the (much vaunted) winter of 2013-14 when I came outside at 2:50 AM to find my car completely encased in 1/5 to 1/4" of solid ice, it took me about 20 minutes to chip and scrape enough off the windows that I could go in to work. That was before I bothered looking at model forecasts for winter wx, but I don't recall much talk about major icing in the days leading up to that, either. It seems that major ice storms; like the mother of all derechos, are virtually impossible to confidently forecast with any significant lead time. *Edit: All that said, there appear to be some more significant "Thundersleet" cells just to the west of Madison. We'll see what happens under those. Sent from my Pixel 4a using Tapatalk

Radar returns still basically non-existent, but we're gradually accumulating a thin glaze of ice. Sent from my Pixel 4a using Tapatalk

LOL, radar doesn't even show any returns over us.

Model outputs for southern WI have come down quite a bit in recent runs (what else is new, but it's ice, so I'm relatively OK with that). Looks like most significant icing will be over NE IL including the NW burbs; and northern Lower MI. 12Z HRRR has obscene totals in SE WI and far NE IL? Lake-effect ZR?

Don't worry, we (at least we here in southern Wisconsin) will get repeated cold intrusions and more snow than we got in Dec./Jan. combined (although it will all be slushy slop and melt within two days) from now through the end of April.

Pretty significant differences in timing between the 00Z HRRR and 3KM NAM, with Madison continuing to accrue ZR through 20Z Tuesday afternoon the former; while the event is essentially done by 09Z Tuesday morning on the latter. @madwx

Public report estimated 55 MPH gust at Pardeeville.

Dont know if MKX has ever issued one of these before today. BULLETIN - IMMEDIATE BROADCAST REQUESTED Snow Squall Warning National Weather Service Milwaukee/Sullivan WI 646 PM CST Fri Feb 18 2022 WIC021-025-027-039-055-131-190145- /O.NEW.KMKX.SQ.W.0004.220219T0046Z-220219T0145Z/ Fond du Lac WI-Columbia WI-Dane WI-Washington WI-Jefferson WI- Dodge WI- 646 PM CST Fri Feb 18 2022 The National Weather Service in Milwaukee/Sullivan has issued a * Snow Squall Warning for... Southeastern Fond du Lac County in east central Wisconsin... Southeastern Columbia County in south central Wisconsin... Northeastern Dane County in south central Wisconsin... Northern Washington County in southeastern Wisconsin... Northern Jefferson County in southeastern Wisconsin... Dodge County in southeastern Wisconsin... * Until 745 PM CST. * At 645 PM CST, a dangerous snow squall was located along a line extending from near Waupun to Waunakee, moving southeast at 45 mph. HAZARD...Poor visibility in heavy snow and blowing snow. Wind gusts greater than 40 mph. SOURCE...Radar and webcams. IMPACT...Dangerous life-threatening travel. * This includes the following highways... Interstates 90 and 94. Interstate 41. Locations impacted include... Madison, West Bend, Sun Prairie, Watertown, Beaver Dam, Hartford, Monona, Lake Mills, Mayville, Slinger, Columbus, Kewaskum, Marshall, Horicon, Waterloo, Juneau, Cottage Grove, Johnson Creek, Deerfield and Shorewood Hills. PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS... Reduce your speed and turn on headlights! During snow squalls, the visibility may suddenly drop to near zero in whiteout conditions. Wet roadways will quickly freeze. Black ice will cause roads, bridges and overpasses to become slick and dangerous. Slow down and be prepared for sudden loss of traction. && LAT...LON 4319 8851 4320 8853 4318 8854 4304 8873 4307 8952 4357 8863 4356 8816 4354 8816 4354 8804 4352 8804 TIME...MOT...LOC 0045Z 299DEG 40KT 4359 8864 4317 8948 $$ ANDERSON

Nice view of the IA/NW-NC IL/SC-SE WI repetitive screw zone there, too.

Just had a flash/boom here.

Potential for a rather high-end (by our standards) synoptic wind event has kind of snuck up on us. Chief met at my employer mentioning potential for >50 MPH gusts this afternoon and evening. MKX has posted a wind advisory.

BULLETIN - EAS ACTIVATION REQUESTED Tornado Warning National Weather Service Jackson MS 1257 PM CST Thu Feb 17 2022 The National Weather Service in Jackson has issued a * Tornado Warning for... Northeastern Holmes County in central Mississippi... Southeastern Carroll County in north central Mississippi... Northwestern Attala County in central Mississippi... Southeastern Montgomery County in north central Mississippi... * Until 145 PM CST. Second tornado warning on this cell, first was (inexplicably in my opinion) allowed to expire about 20 minutes ago.

Make snow days great again...and just delete the coding for the GFS and start over.

Trash model, particularly when it comes to southern stream winter storms. Noted.

12Z GFS at 246 hours shows basically what I'm afraid of...broad area of vigorous SW flow at 500mb east of the Rockies, yet there is little surface response to speak of, moisture is confined to the southern half of the Gulf states and we never get above the low 30s for highs in Wisconsin. Of course, last week the GFS also had >20" of snow going NORTHWEST of Madison at the ~180 hour timeframe, so...

Whoa, Euro actually gives us more than 2 inches over the next 240 hours? Amazing.

This time, at least as of latest 06z run it's already starting out with the heavy swath passing south of us (through central IL) so watch it end up going through southeast Missouri, Kentucky and far southern Indiana/Ohio. In late February. Also MKX has a 70% chance of snow for Monday night and 50% Tuesday, but GFS doesn't really show any increase in accumulation over us in that timeframe.

Thanks for this post, I'm a severe wx guy so I had no clue how to use soundings to forecast winter wx.