rockchalk83

18z Euro trended up again. Map is centered on Kansas.

People are losing their minds. A little light freezing drizzle/snow grains. Winter time in Wichita.

Good pull. Thanks for that.

I thought Kuchera only took into account the column temp below 500 mb? I don't think wind factors into any of the SLR equations at all. Still, though, I see where you're going. The wind is going to shred the dendrites and make them smaller, thus, harder to accumulate.

Color me intrigued. If the afternoon high-res models continue to latch on, it maybe wagons up (slightly) with snowfall totals out here. But like Wx 24/7 was saying, this is going to be a crazy 36-48 hours for everyone.

Looking ahead, it does appear La Nina is (thankfully) beginning to loosen its grip and we'll be moving back into more of an ENSO neutral phase for the JFM period. Hopefully this will help back the storm track up and give us all some much needed moisture.

We take.

The Icon has the right idea. Cold air is dense and always moves faster than forecast.

Yeah that feels like the safe bet here, but it wouldn't shock me to see a blizzard warning either...given we'll have >50 mph winds as the snow is falling.

The trend has not been kind to most of us in the last 12-18 hours. Models shifting away from a more amplified/west solution to one where the energy wraps up east of our domain, with a handoff at the east coast. Bottom line continues to be, as it always has been, the major cold coming. Very low wind chills of -10 to -30 possible for everyone by Friday morning.

The cold air is going to move faster than any model is predicting. I would use caution in the GFS’ interpretation of the polar front. Looks about 8-12 hours too slow to me.

That makes sense. There is some backing of the low level flow at 925 and 850 mb as well, which would aid in the increased precip, too. I agree with you that the GFS is too wet for this setup. If that signal shows up later....hide the women and children. By far, the winds and cold will be the greatest societal impact from this, but the snow cannot be ignored.

Man, that's one juicy GFS run. I'm lost trying to figure out what the moisture source for the system is. But, if it happens like this....widespread blizzard conditions for a lot of folks.

Support from the Canadian model for this system as well.

00z GFS Ens snowfall (10:1 ratio) thru 12z Sat

18z GEFS thru 12z Friday. Some huge hits here:

There was a trend toward the GFS in the 12z run. We'll see what 00z looks like. And, the Euro ENS mean does show more moisture in the area vs. the operational run for Thursday. EDIT: Multiple Euro ENS members do have big hits for our area.

I hate this feeling that we could be headed for a let down. But, we're at weather's craps table....so let it ride.

Time for modeling is over. Nowcasting mode is on. Good luck, everyone!

I'm sure everyone would check 'YES' here:

How are we feeling, everyone? This definitely looks like the most impactful winter storm our forum has had in sometime! Have you all chucked the global models and started looking at short-term stuff?

That is a really good point on a possible failure mode, at least for us out here. If there's any consolation, I would say the NAM is too warm in the mid-levels and at the surface. IMO I don't think we're going to have sleet with 925 mb, 850 mb, and 700 mb temps around -5C at 6z Wed. Once the precip starts, it should cool the column sufficently to change us to all snow. And all the models suggest that the precip rapidly expands and intensifies after midnight tomorrow into Wednesday. I think we'll do all right here, but to jack, we need to get under a band that doesn't move. It's been 13 months since the last >6" snowfall here. I'm prepared for doom here too, man. But, we do need the moisture.

12z GFS back to a solid snowstorm for C & S KS, N OK into SW-C MO.

Agreed on the NAM as a whole, but would you say the highest confidence in significant snow impacts is from C KS into C MO? Also, saw the models average Kuchera ratios between 14 & 15:1 for this event, do you think that's accurate?

The 18z GFS hasn’t run yet. That’s from 12z.