LakeEffectOH

Latest ensembles do show some possible clipper opportunities in the next couple of weeks, so there's that. Caveat, all can totally change in 6-8 hours, Lol. However, there's been some persistence in the ensembles over the past day or two and the MJO looks, as of now, to stay in phase 7 and even 8 for the next two weeks. Optimistic here.

What's really weird is that we've really lost out a lot on lake effect. Part of the reason, IMHO, is the prevalence of a +NAO over the last several winters. With a +NAO, the trough axis tends to stay to our west and the resulting cutters only bring flurries as there is little residual moisture after a storm cuts into Wisconsin or Michigan. Also if LES conditions are better (more moisture and arctic air) a +NAO can result in a more WSW flow sending the LES to Buffalo. Note, the NAO was mostly negative in Dec 2020 and we had not one but two awesome snowstorms.

Interesting that NWS CLE has 1-2" Thurs nite and 1-2" for Friday. Would be nice if we could at least winter things up with 2-4" of snow. More snow forecast early next week, lasting from Sunday nite thru Tuesday.

Warm tongue of death (WTOD): eastward moving warm air hits the west Appalachians and is forced northward. Especially bad in the eastern 2/3s of OH. Storm doesn't necessarily have to be a Cutter to do this...

This upcoming event looks like a total dud. Look for the forecast accumulations to be reduced to the customary, as of late, an inch or less. A term I thoroughly dislike.

Don't forget Tennessee...

Yeah, for the most part it was a dry (relatively), disorganized event. Higher sun angles during the daytime at this time of year often enhance the convection/subsidence process creating these dumb fleeting cells when one minute it's a whiteout and the next, the sun's out.

A clipper is progged to bring some snow to Cleveland (CLE) area starting very early Friday morning and continuing throughout the day into Friday evening. I see Friday as having periods of rain, rain/snow mix and all wet snow later in the day. Friday evening, wet snow could accumulate 1-2", especially north of the Ohio Turnpike. Additional lake effect snow for the snowbelt (East Cuyahoga, Lake, Geauga and Ashtabula counties) could get anywhere from an inch in Cleveland's Eastern burbs (East Cuyahoga) to locally 3+ inches in Ashtabula county. ...Stay tuned...

As early as Wednesday afternoon, I didn't have a good feeling about this. Then, looked like the cold air adv. was a little slow and dry air adv. was somewhat aggressive. I smelled a bust. How big, I didn't know then, but I had my doubts about anything over 5-10". The LES cells on Thurs/Fri were disorganized/"pop-cornish" and fast moving which is common with late-season LES events. My best snowfall came on Friday Night when I picked up around 3". My storm total was 5-6".

Have you looked at https://weathermodels.com/ ? Their prices are reasonable for hobbyist and even commercial users. There are just as many models and maybe even more than what WXBell offers. I am cancelling my WXBell subscription and restarting the WX Models one.

I usually use the same thing. Used to have more locations and storm totals.

Hi, Back again after a long time away... Anybody else notice the snowfall reports from CLE are scattered and out of date?

Hey! Sorry I didn’t get back to you sooner. Taking a guess, id say Chesterland has had about 55” (give or take a few inches) this year. How about Russell?

Could it be climatology balancing out the snowy 2000s?

Well, CLE broke the 30" mark for the season...

I checked BUF and was surprised to see they already have 113" as of yesterday. Must've been asleep, . -PNA pattern still messes things up as the beloved SE Ridge tilts the flow more ENE sending the LES away from us and to NWPA/WNY. Because of the -PNA's persistence, what few lake effect events we've had this year are brief, in and out events before the flow returns to the ENE. Eventually the SE Ridge is amplified by the next Cutter spiking our temps for 12-36 hours with a lot of rain to melt it all away. During Feb., the amped SE Ridge decided to camp out for much of the month. Also, a -PNA pattern sweeps high pressure into the area as we are in an upper level pattern dominated by flat ridging (SE Ridge), even when it is really cold, thus drying the air at all levels. During most winters, we get in at least a few upper level trough patterns that last several days and rotate little short waves once every 18-36 hours depositing a good bit of LES over much NE Ohio over the duration of said upper level trough. You can see the 500mb height anomalies for 2/3-3/4 and 12/5/18-3/4/19. The 2/3-3/4 heights are pretty telling.

I had 3" of fluff too. NWS CLE was forecasting their usual less than one inch accumulation. I hate that term less than one inch. The old little or no accumulation sounded better. When "less than one inch" or "less than 1/2 inch" is used, to me that has a rubbing your nose in it feel. End of rant...

Plus the negative pacific north american pattern (-PNA )set up a mostly southwesterly flow that 1) Kept much of the snow well to the north and west of us (Congrats Minneapolis-St Paul) and shunted what little LES to our north an east. Even when temperatures are really cold, wind was out of the WSW. -PNA patterns often cause shear and sweep high pressure too fast for any decent LES, even in WNY. Good example of a -PNA pattern. From http://www.wisconsinwx.com.

Sad...Next winter HAS to be better...

Looks like we had about 6" of paste in Chesterland. Down here at work in Solon...it looks more like 8" fell. Figures CLE issued an advisory with all the wind and snowfall. Late last night and this morning it looked more like warning conditions.

The 2010s are a far cry from the 2000s when big storms seemed to come once or twice a year. I remember the March 2008 storm well. 20-24" all the way up I-71.

This has been a crappy snow drought...I don't think we've had a decent synoptic event (CLE having 10+") since early 2011. The GHD II storm in 2015 dumped over a foot in many parts of the area, but CLE picked up about 8". I attached a graph of annual snowfall totals for CLE. Red line is at 70" which is close to our annual average of 68.1" The 2010s have been below normal except for 2013-14.

Hard to tell how much fell IMBY. My front yard has spots where the grass is poking thru, but my back yard has drifts up to 2 feet high. Judging by this storm total map from the NWS, Chesterland picked up from 8 to 10 inches. Overall, the storm under-performed based on the totals maps issued on Monday PM. I think, as often happens, drier air advected in faster than forecast, thus cutting snow totals...not to mention the primary storm getting its energy sucked out by the coastal.. It seems like coastals robbing primary storm systems as they approach NE Ohio have been fairly common over the past several years. This could very well be caused by persistent warmer than normal SSTs off the east coast. When the arctic air comes in from the west, clashing with the abnormally warm ssts, the coastal storms spin up fast and quite often, bomb out. SSTA Maps for recent Januarys...Notice the SSTAs off of the east coast (circled in red)...

So far, Chesterland has been bracketed by the larger band about 5mi to our west and a weaker band just to the east. Only flurries over the last few hours w/no accumulation. Hope the situation changes.

The radar looks awful! Disorganized with Nothing but tiny popcorn snow showers scattered all over the place. Drive a half mile, you are in very light flurries. Go another half mile, its a whiteout. Ugh!