mnchaserguy

The forecast was much different when the winter storm watches for 5-8” was originally issued and forecast. A lot changed in the models after that. Edited to add the weather story graphic from a couple days ago from MPX that highlighted the south metro being in the bullseye. .

Ended up with about 5” here in the northern MSP suburbs. Dog was happy about it. Edit: Snow report just to my west just came in at 7”. Not bad at all. .

Looks like next weekend could be interesting here in MN too. Gfs has been pretty consistent with a big storm. .

I think I got a solid 4-5” so far. Big band of snow just to my south should help make up a bit for most of the metro. .

You’re complaining about things that no one can control. Saying “how can you be content” is dumb because there is nothing anyone can do to change that. It’s understandable to be frustrated but to be incessantly complaining about it is annoying. It’s almost like you’re taking it personally. .

We’ve seen plenty of winter storm fails over the years around here but it has been truly so to watch this one go from potential 12” to possibly less than 2” in just a couple days. That dry slot is really going to mess things up for southern MN. .

Euro has almost completely dried up for us in MSP. Hrrr still says we will have a decent storm. Who knows which one is right. Would lean towards the high res but the models are a crap shoot these days. .

At this rate it seems like it’s going to end up being about half that. That dry slot could really mess things up too. .

Got a solid 4” here in my backyard. I was on the northern end of the heavier band this morning. I bet places just to my north got half of that, and we were in the bullseye on everything leading up to this event. Might add another inch this afternoon, but it looks like the main band will stay south of me. .

Faribault reporting 4.3” at 7:00. That is where the heaviest band set up and sat this morning. Guessing I have about 3” at my house. Dry slot looks to be working in from the south. We’ll see how far north it goes and how much havoc it wrecks on the snow. .

Looks like this thing came in well south of where the models showed it would. Wonder where the bullseye ends up now. .

I don’t think I’ve ever seen it either. Especially not for this large of an area. North side of the cities is definitely in the better spot, but the 18z models say it might not matter. 18z hrrr actually buries the south metro more. I think both of us will enjoy a solid storm out of this. Could have some 1”/hour rates in the morning. .

I went from nothing to Winter Storm Warning. Just gotta hope that dry slot doesn’t screw me over tomorrow. 10-20 miles could make a big difference in what I get vs what @Ordlowpitmsp gets tomorrow. .

Clipper systems are annoyingly finicky. Looks like we’ll miss out on the snow today in Minneapolis. Still on track to get a decent amount from a more potent clipper on Thursday. .

Models have trended a decent ways south for tomorrow. Maybe a half inch for us. Not sure what that means for the track for Thursday if it’ll follow a similar southern trend. The good news is that Thursday’s system looks to have a pretty wide band so even if we don’t end up in the sweet spot we should still get a decent amount. .

Looks like a couple of chances for snow here in Minneapolis this week. An inch or two tomorrow night then a bigger clipper system on Thursday. Still a bit of spread in the models for both systems but either way we should pick up some snow this week. .

It was really weird. The snow squall conditions would last for about 30 seconds at a time for me. The main band stayed just to my south and was only about a mile wide for the most part. .

First time I’ve ever been in a snow squall warning .

First time I’ve ever seen them actually dance and it happened directly over my head. Can’t believe it. .

I’m having to look overhead and south right now in central Minnesota in order to see them too. Crazy. Never had to do that before. .

Pretty awesome show in central MN. First time I’ve gotten to see them directly overhead and even south of me. .

One other thing to look back at is the amount of low level (0-3km) CAPE. Not sure how high it was on Tuesday but the general rule of thumb here in Minnesota and northern plains is if the 0-3km CAPE is 150 or above the storms usually do well. Overlapping this low level CAPE with a lot of vorticity is how we get a lot of our “surprise” tornado days. It makes sense. Even if the mixed layer is on the marginal side for CAPE, if a lot of it is loaded in the lowest levels, it can still produce some significant storms. The Ashby, MN tornado was a perfect example, although we had the extra benefit of extreme MLCAPE. .

Your last point is exactly why I missed the Osceola EF2 (which turns out was the smallest but strongest of the tors in that area). Saw the couplet to my south for that tor really get going after my second tor had lifted but without a good road option south and it getting close to dark it wasn’t worth risking a drive into Osceola with the couplet heading right for town, even though it may have given me a view of it in hindsight. .

I observed both of my tornadoes while I was on highway 34. I saw the first one when I was a couple miles west of Creston. It touched down at about 7:20. The tornado itself touched down east of Creston, just south of highway 34. The second tornado I saw was from a different storm that had come up from behind the previous tornadic storm and had a nearly identical path as the first tornado I saw. This one touched down at about 7:50 pm. Here is the screenshot I took of the radar as the second tornado I saw was going on. I’ll see if I can explain what happened and maybe it’ll help you figure out why you missed it. I highlighted three different couplets. The top one is the couplet from the tornado that actually went through Creston (near the hospital). I believe this was pretty rain wrapped based on what I saw on radar. The middle couplet is the one that produced the first tornado I saw. I ended up getting behind this storm due to camera malfunction and slow traffic going through Creston. The bottom couplet is the storm that produced the second tornado I saw. I had given up on trying to catch up to the middle couplet and noticed the bottom couplet had really gotten going. Instead of continuing east through Afton on highway 34, I turned around in Afton and headed back west a mile or two to find a clearing in the hills and trees to get a view of the base. Within about minutes of getting a view, the tornado was on the ground. It would have been easy to overlook the storms behind you if you were focused on the original tornadic storms. It probably worked out in my favor that I had to give up on the other storms and allowed me to see what was going on behind me. Hope that makes sense. Definitely a difficult chase with the hills, trees, and bad road network. .

Managed to see two tornadoes in southern IA on Friday between Creston and Afton, IA. Both have been rated EF2. I also came into Osceola right after it was hit by what is the strongest (and also smallest) tornado of the group based on the damage surveys. Also included a screenshot of my location on radar. I was absolutely surrounded by tornado warnings, including being in three different warnings at once at one point. .