mnchaserguy

MSP finally hit 50 degrees today, officially breaking our streak of 126 days without hitting 50 degrees or warmer. Man it’s been a long winter. Finally feels like spring out there. .

The main focus is obviously on the severe threat but I want to point out the cold side up here in MSP is no joke either. Blizzard warnings for the MSP metro which is really rare. 6-10” of snow, 50 mph gusts, thundersnow, and 1-2” per hour rates. Gonna be a bad night to be on the road and that’s one reason I chose not to chase down in Iowa today. Getting home would have been tough. Back to the severe weather discussion. .

The Twin Cities have been upgraded to a blizzard warning which is quite rare for the metro. 6-10” of snow and wind gusts to 50 mph. 1-2” per hour rates tonight. The cold side of this storm is no joke either. .

One of the more ridiculous UH maps I’ve seen. .

Indeed. And these kinds of speeds are how you get long track tornadoes. A tornado can cover a lot of ground in 15-20+ minutes if it's moving 50-60 mph. In my experience, 50 mph is about the upper end of being able to chase. Once you get past that, it becomes extremely hard to keep up with the storm, especially if the storm isn't moving due east. It looks like storm speeds on Tuesday could be in the 55-70 mph range across a lot of the warm sector. A powerful jet streak is great until it starts cranking up the storm speeds.

This is a hell of a set up. From a chasing perspective, the storm motions will once again be a problem with storm speeds forecast in the 50-60 knot range on the forecast soundings. They look better along the warm front in Iowa, which is where I may end up if this setup holds together like the models currently show. .

I want to give it a shot tomorrow but I'm having a tough time with storm motions in the 50-60 knot range. Driving 3-4 hours each way to hopefully watch a storm fly by just doesn't sound all that appealing. Throw in a snowstorm on the drive home and it really doesn't sound like it's worth it coming from MSP.

I’m not quite sure how to wrap my head around our snow potential tomorrow here in MSP. It will be a very fine line between a dumping of snow and cold rain but the picture the models are painting right now is a convective band lifting north into MSP tomorrow night right as we start getting below freezing. If that happens, we could get absolutely buried. The nam and nest have been showing this scenario for a while and the HRRR, Gfs, and Euro are all on board with only spatial differences. The 12z HRRR has a 5” per hour rate in the south metro tomorrow night. It accumulates 22” in 12 hours. That is insane. I’m not sure how to process something like that happening around here. .

Some pretty wide ranges being thrown out by MPX. Goes to show how hard this one is going to be to predict. .

My point and click says 4-8” Friday night. This is getting a bit ridiculous. .

I would like to think I am going to be chasing this but at this point I don’t think it’s worth the drive from Minneapolis. If it slows down and/or shifts back north then it might be on the table for me. Right now this is a very progressive system which means fast storm motions. This is backed up by 50+ knot Bunkers right storm speeds. This will make keeping up with the storms difficult. The only area with backed winds are going to be tucked up right up on the center of the low. That really cuts down the area to work with and the window of opportunity to get a storm to produce. That being said, all it’ll take is one or two storms in that environment to go crazy. Very nice low and mid level SRH and 75 knots of effective shear. The biggest question will probably be the quality of moisture return, which the SPC mentions in their D4 outlook. .

Gonna be a nice 40 degree day around here before more snow moves in tomorrow. It’ll probably be mostly a slop fest but MPX did issue a WSW for it so maybe there is more potential than I want to admit. .

Chanhassen NWS is at 90.7” for the season. Unfortunately the records go off of the airport measurements and they’ve recorded significantly less than the NWS considering they’re only about 20 miles apart. Looks like the airport is sitting at 80.7”, which is still good enough for 7th snowiest. .

I believe there was a supercell that made it all the way from Oklahoma to Michigan during this event. .

Picked up 3”+ today. More than I expected. Looks like the snow will probably be ending here pretty quick. .

It’s snowing pretty good here in MSP right now. .

How did MKE do? Asking for a friend. .

The next big weekly snowstorm for MSP is on the 12z Euro for next Friday. Right now it shows about 15” imby. Let’s see how much that number gets whittled down between now and then. .

Radar doesn’t look all that impressive but it’s actually been coming down pretty good around MSP. It’s wet snow so it hasn’t added up to much but it has made the roads a nightmare. .

Lol it’s the same conversation though. I digress. This has gotten way too off topic and I don’t need people to complain about it like they did about Dallas. .

But where do you draw the line? By that logic you could argue there is no need to issue tornado, severe thunderstorm, or flash flood watches or warnings because everyone could just get this information from other sources. .

It’s been snowing for a couple hours now. Doesn’t look like it’s sticking to the pavement at all yet. .

I read through the comments too. Not a single one “laughing” at the NWS… .

I guarantee you the public doesn’t pay as much attention to a WWA vs WSWS as you think they do. I am willing to bet a lot of money most people had no idea it went advisory then warning, and most of them probably wouldn’t care even if they did know. .

Nice! Hasn’t added up to much at my office in St Louis Park so far. .