CheeselandSkies

I couldn't do it.

Looks identical to the two main Feb. storms, watch the southern one trend south and screw S. WI/E. IA/NW-NC IL again.

February 2022 definitely did not bring the action for southern WI though the way 2/20 and '21 did (*see above post made as I was typing mine).

NAM suggests even more meager instability than the GFS despite what appear to be decent lapse rates ahead of the cold front...looks like Saturday will be a "save the gas and enjoy the rain" kind of day at this point. Would like to bottle that forecast 500mb pattern and repeat it in about 6-8 weeks, though.

Yeah, for Saturday surface/500 mb look intriguing and have for quite a while, but paltry instability values have also been a consistent aspect of the model forecasts despite relatively high dewpoints for the latitude and time of year. As I've mentioned, it can happen but it takes absolutely on point kinematics and really cold air aloft (3/15/16 being a good example). At this point not really seeing a strong signal toward that, SPC's areal outline seems more like a "hedge our bets" type of forecast.

Apparently no one is interested in the severe threat for Saturday. SPC introduced an area centered on Iowa for Day 5 yesterday, and this morning expanded it to include parts of southwest WI and western IL. A bit optimistic IMO given the paltry instability values forecast, but seasonally high dewpoints for this latitude coupled with a strong negatively tilted 500mb shortwave and surface low always bears watching. We need the rain at any rate.

Sloppy seconds season getting started early. Saturday may turn out to be my earliest season chase day since 3/15/16 (dismissed the northern extent of 2/28/17 out of hand because of the calendar, won't make that mistake again).

Model watching season is just beginning for me.

RIP snow cover, we hardly knew ye.

God, I hope not.

Extended western/central troughing pattern is supported not only by consistency from op GFS but also the Euro and its ensembles...SPC has mentioned it in their 4-8 outlook for a few days now although the main timeframe of interest still remains at/just beyond the Day 8 range so they haven't introduced an areal highlight yet. Details remain nebulous as to be expected at this range. Ideally would be occurring a month or two later especially for action into this sub but it can still happen in early/mid March (or earlier) and happen big...2/28/17, 3/15/16, 3/2/12, 3/12/06, 3/13/90, even 3/18/25.

For sure. However, that's for something that's a fairly sensitive detail (albeit an important one, especially when talking about impacts to major metro areas), namely snowfall amounts. For general synoptics, you'd hope that some run-to-run consistency would mean SOMETHING.

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.