CheeselandSkies

35 minutes ago, madwx said:

Don't forget the engine tomorrow, which is the arctic front.  looks to bring a DAB-.5" to areas east of the Mississippi

Choo choo, mother****....

After steady snow in Madison since around 4:30, finally got into a heavy band with some bigger flakes.

6 minutes ago, sielicki said:

Madison, WI sitting pretty, I'm hoping for a big event.

I haven't been able to snowmobile around here in over two years.

All quiet at the moment after a dusting on top of a brief period of freezing rate late this morning/early afternoon.

12Z HRRR has us up to 8.4" (Kuchera) by 15Z tomorrow and still snowing. I was thinking the main impacts would be from this evening's rush into the overnight, but it looks like it will be rough well into tomorrow morning.

Would like to see WAA of this magnitude in an April system with severe potential...

I was saying it this time last year and I'll say it again...I'm not loving the cold, but we need a decent (climo) snowpack built up to make sure we don't dry out in the spring. Although, with all the rain late last summer maybe we don't need so much this time.

MKX has hoisted a winter storm watch for all but their southeastern counties, effective beginning at 6 AM tomorrow.

Arctic outbreaks are normal in January. If they continue into late March and especially April, then it becomes a problem.

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Not really, just got the first decent event of the winter Friday night into yesterday. 61-page thread (and growing) devoted to tracking that one!

It's all good. I do lurk around here a lot because it's usually the only part of the forum where severe wx discussion is ongoing this time of year.

2018's over, guys. New thread time.

100X time lapse from my balcony, 3:10-4:40 PM.

 

Here we go! Parking lot at my apt building has a solid dusting now, just started my GoPro timelapse off my balcony.

Just now, madwx said:

Its been snowing on the SW side of Madison for about 45 mins now.  Small flakes but accumulating on both grass and untreated roads.

Yup. SW side here also (south of the Beltline between Whitney and Gammon). Nice dusting on my car.

2 hours ago, madwx said:

GFS has had the low running from Kansas City to just north of Chicago for the past couple runs.  ECMWF has a similar idea.  Both bring a big hit to southern Wisconsin.  Unfortunately looks like rain for areas further south.

What side of town are you on?

Nice discussion from MKX this morning.

Quote

.PREV DISCUSSION... (Issued 456 AM CST Fri Jan 18 2019)

SHORT TERM...

Today Through Saturday...Forecast Confidence is Medium.

We haven`t seen significant changes to model precip amounts with
the last couple of runs. If anything, amounts went up near the
WI/IL border and lake enhanced snow may affect Sheboygan county a
little longer than previously anticipated. We rolled the Winter
Storm Watch areas into a Warning with the exception of Ozaukee
County, then added Sheboygan and Ozaukee as Advisories. The other
Advisory counties remain unchanged.

Our snowfall amounts fall right in the middle of where the models
suggest. Looking at the WPC probability graphics on our winter
weather page, the forecast snowfall amounts fall in between the
50th and 75th percentiles. We are a little on the higher side of
guidance because many models do not handle the lake effect portion
very well since it is small scale.

Frontogenesis and upper divergence with the right entrance region
of the upper jet are the key players for southern Wisconsin and
northern Illinois with this event. The average position of the mid
level fgen band between the models is actually on the IL side of
the border. There is fgen expected around 850mb that should be
over southern WI this evening. The meso models are focusing their
higher reflectivity over northern IL. So there remains
uncertainty about whether or not the warning snowfall amounts will
make it into the southern tier of counties in WI.

The other key player is the lake enhancement component with a
long fetch of northeast winds with a sufficient lake-850mb temp
difference. This will add another couple of inches on to the
synoptic snow expected, thus highest snowfall amounts are
anticipated over eastern Kenosha county and areas into northeast
IL.

The model soundings show a deep dendritic growth zone over south
central WI for the last half of the snow, after midnight tonight
into Saturday morning. Then dry air moves in from the northwest
quickly to end the snow. There is a chance the snow could over-
perform during this time if we get higher snow ratios with the
deep DGZ, but went with more conservative amounts for now.

 

It's a start. Maybe this will be better suited for another thread but I'm struggling to wrap my head around why this upcoming winter storm will not be able to produce at least a medium-ceiling severe weather episode in the warm sector. Not that I'd be able to chase it anyway but I'd just like to track some radar signatures a bit like your avatar to get the adrenaline pumping.

Any other time of year and this would be one hell of a severe set up down south, I do think they get some as is but man, if this was March and beyond.

Big winter outbreaks can and have happened, 1/7 and 2/5 (Super Tuesday) '08 and December 2015 spring immediately to mind, to a lesser extent February 2016 and '17. However the persistent issues from 2018 seem to be lingering with this one, particularly poor warm-sector lapse rates despite the Gulf being wide open and with it being winter, you'd think it would be so frigid upstairs that cloud cover wouldn't matter.

 

 

41 minutes ago, mimillman said:

Watch the Euro come in as a MSN special :p

That would be hilarious given how much MKX and our local mets (including the chief met at my employer) have been downplaying this system.

Based on the latest Day 4-8, they're not expecting much out of this.

Those maps are rather meaningless without legends...

1 hour ago, Geoboy645 said:

Come on storm dump some snow on me! Please! I hate this eternal November weather!

We actually got more snow in November, lol...although the big dog whiffed to the south which appears in retrospect to have been the start of a trend.

Good to know they're still keeping track of records, I thought everything not directly related to forecasting/warning might be curtailed due to the shutdown.

Add this to my litany of complaints: The fact that it's pouring rain and forecast to hit 50 degrees today in southern Wisconsin in early January, and not a whiff of a severe threat anywhere in the country. Normally with conditions like that this time of year, we would be in a setup like January 7, 2008.

Looks like 2019 wants to continue its predecessor's utter lameness in that regard. No hints of anything in the LR either to go along with the general paucity of snow systems to track.

* This lifelong Wisconsinite was able to hold his tongue fairly well watching the end of yesterday's game with his Bears fan girlfriend...

I am not a winterista and I hope never to see a repeat of 2013-14 with the seemingly endless much BN temps (which in DJF in WI means single digits and below). February 2015 and the "spring" of 2018 were ominously close.

As I posted elsewhere, in "theory" just normal early January temps in WI should be plenty cold enough to snow. However it seems lately (other than the NYE overachiever) our options are JUST warm enough to rain, or brutally cold and bone dry.