RCNYILWX

It's basically the CAMs and RAP against the globals, with the GFS the farthest northeast of these. Wouldn't be surprised at a compromise in which the better f-gen banding and accum axis is indeed farther southwest, while farther north and east we get several hours of pixies accumulating to an inch or two. Could certainly be wrong but my current lean is away from a complete whiff with the first system. Too soon to write off Saturday for adjustments back (a decent % of 06z EPS members still had solid snow up into parts of the metro).

Pretty much inevitable there would be some form of pattern relaxation. The saving grace from probably not getting into a lengthy torch is the WPO is forecast to remain strongly negative, which keeps cold air discharge going into our source region. The EPO may head back toward neutral heading into Christmas week and then perhaps back to negative thereafter. I think with the likelihood of new snow on top of the melted and consolidated snowpack through this weekend and then the deep freeze for a couple days, if we can avoid a high dew point rain event, snowpack retention should be decent before a true pattern reload commences. Also with the -WPO that means CAA behind fronts should be fairly robust. Milder more zonal patterns often end up cloudy which typically isn't effective at melting much snow this time of year, again unless you get a couple days of high dew points. Even at over two weeks out, I'd lean towards Chicago having its first official white Christmas in a while. Sent from my SM-S936U using Tapatalk

WSSI suggests that DVN upgrading some counties to a warning was a very aggressive move. Given that we had a warranted daytime warning event a week ago, it's questionable if the possibility of getting a narrow band of 6-7" of snow on a Saturday evening-early Sunday warning is sufficient to prompt a warning. Sticking with a WWA seems like it would've been fine. We'll see how it goes. Sent from my SM-S936U using Tapatalk

Call it 8.1" for me. Nearest CoCoRaHS (Naperville 2.5 ESE) had 8.5". Looks like about 8-9" was the range in this part of the southwest burbs. My largest (and favorite) November event since I've lived out here and largest overall for my area since Feb 1-3, 2022. The most recent big late November event in 2018 was slop in the southwest burbs until the very end. Sent from my SM-S936U using Tapatalk

I measured 7.3" by me, first time measuring all day though so there was definitely compaction. I don't have great places to measure since I have a big tree out front and also in back of my house. The Naperville 2.5 ESE CoCoRaHS is probably only a little over a mile from me so I'll see what they come up with in the morning. Sent from my SM-S936U using Tapatalk

Filled in nicely again, maybe another 1 to locally 2". Gonna measure later for a storm total. Has to be over 6" here too. Sent from my SM-S936U using Tapatalk

Legit SN to +SN out here in my part of Naperville (near DuPage Will border). Sent from my SM-S936U using Tapatalk

The top end range on the "official NWS forecast" graphic is the 75th percentile of the NBM distribution and the low end is the 25th percentile. Point and click is still quite high and possibly/likely overdone and our (LOT CWA) overnight forecaster did some work to rein it in a bit even. Looks like DVN made less adjustments to the initialized data so they have a large area of 12"+. I can say, speaking for my office, that we all strongly dislike the probabilistic winter page but unfortunately we don't have control over what's displayed on it.

I'm off through the weekend so will get to experience this one from the weather enthusiast side. In all honestly, haven't looked at model data since my shift ended this morning lol. How are trends for Chicagoland? Sent from my SM-S936U using Tapatalk

The last two EPS runs have been mighty impressive, which is usually the guidance suite you want on your side. Too far out to be super confident but if we don't see any sig backsliding, chances are pretty decent even at this lead time for the biggest synoptic event in this part of the subforum since the two weeks of winter in January 2024 (which isn't saying all that much given the lack of snow last winter). Sent from my SM-S936U using Tapatalk

I put together a long range pattern thoughts document for LOT staff a few days ago regarding the the impressive agreement in a cold and potentially active pattern with some staying power. It'll be primarily -EPO driven at first but then with the stratospheric warming/SPV stretching event ongoing, that tends to translate with blocking also developing in the AO and NAO domains. If we can keep the PNA neutral to negative, could set up for a rare snowy December for a good chunk of the region. For Chicago since 2010, the only Decembers that had both above normal snowfall and below normal temps are 2010, 2013, and 2016. Below normal temps but below normal snow occurred in 2017 and 2022. I know that Detroit had a very good December in 2017 from a much more favorable clipper track there. Sent from my SM-S936U using Tapatalk

Based on how much discussion there was on social media of the NWS snowfall maps with the huge ranges, was that a topic on here and did anyone attempt to address what those ranges represent? I'd be happy to, just don't want to rehash if it's already been covered. Sent from my SM-S936U using Tapatalk

Also if you're a Chicagoan who likes snow, getting in on any heavy LES prior to the halfway point of November is a big win and extremely rare (I don't recall any events in my time here). I believe there may have been one back in 2000.

This. As this case shows, it's tough to get things just right for a certain location with lake effect on the south end of the lake even when there is stationary banding. The jackpot zones are almost always going to be narrow. It's what makes events like Feb 14-16, 2021 rare for the city.

Just leaving a busy evening shift. TAF verified (edit: at MDW, need ORD still) [emoji123] Sent from my SM-S936U using Tapatalk