RCNYILWX

Really solid f-gen band, snowed hard enough here at LOT that we've been down around 1/2sm visibility and gotten a few tenths on the grass and car tops. Just wet roads and parking lot, though part of the sidewalk outside has a minor dusting. The meso models (aside from the RGEM) and the Euro certainly did best with band placement. Main issue will be that the band is too transient to support any legit accums and impacts. Sent from my SM-G998U using Tapatalk

We definitely got NAMmed by this event, and also the ECMWF being more bullish for several runs didn't help. I was never too excited about the heart of the metro and points west and northwest. But I was overly optimistic for the southeast 1/3 or so of the CWA while the NAM still had global guidance support from the Euro. I suppose some surprises are possible if rates end up heavier along the lines of some of the meso models. Failing that though, Wednesday now appears to have a higher chance of interesting weather. Sent from my SM-G998U using Tapatalk

Agree, shades of April 2, 2016. The NAMnest is modeling 45-50 dBZ cores on Wednesday, owing to those near dry adiabatic 0-3km lapse rates. One lacking aspect on Wednesday is the weaker wind fields, whereas April 2, 2016 had 45-60 mph wind gusts. Could envision 30-40 mph gusts on Wednesday in squalls. Sent from my SM-G998U using Tapatalk

I'm skeptical of how much falls during the day Tuesday if rates aren't heavy. And a majority of the guidance has the heavier snow toward and after sunset Tuesday evening mostly east of the CWA. I was thinking back to Feb 24 2016 when the northwest fringe just outside the heavy snow band that nailed the south burbs into northwest Indiana was essentially white rain despite coming down at a good clip at times. And that was in late February.

Completely agree, I think that it's gonna rip in that rapidly intensifying defo zone Tuesday evening, 1"+/hour type stuff. I currently like south burbs and south in LOT CWA into NW/N IN and lower MI for this event. Sent from my SM-G998U using Tapatalk

NAM fits my general idea for this system so I'll ride it lol. 850 mb front much quicker this run than 18z, so baroclinic zone sets up farther southeast and the top down and bottom up intensification of the synoptic system takes place just too late for most of the IL metro, on Tuesday evening. Looks like non efficient accums, mostly on colder surfaces, during the day on Tuesday over northern IL. Sent from my SM-G998U using Tapatalk

The ECMWF ensemble suite shifted a bit southeast vs 12z, but still a good hit of QPF across much of the Chicago metro. Agree on treating the UKMET as the outlier that it is for now. The Euro, GEM, and NAM all have initial f-gen driven banding starting Monday night over northern IL, that would probably be a narrower area of appreciable accums. Big question mark is when and where does the synoptic system really take off as mid-level wave goes neutral to near negative tilt, and allow a strong deformation axis to develop. The 12z operational ECMWF more or less is the middle ground between the farthest northwest NAM and farther southeast 12z GFS and GEM. At this point, seems more likely than not 1-3" amounts from the initial banding into the metro, with Tuesday PM the wild card. If the intense defo banding sets up just southeast, subsidence northwest of it would probably quickly shut off meaningful snow. Weighing probabilities at this still pretty early juncture, within LOT CWA, southeast of I-55 and particularly northwest Indiana probably have the best chance of a higher impact headline worthy event. Sent from my SM-G998U using Tapatalk

Here's the reasonably realistic looking Kuchera output from Pivotal.

Was thinking about this, https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/02/06/964527835/why-the-pandemic-is-10-times-worse-than-you-think, this article says that as of February we were catching about 1/4 of actual new infections. What sort of estimate was given for the current percent surveillance for India? Sad to say, going to be some unimaginable suffering there, especially in the desperately impoverished areas. And Brazil is scary bad right now.

The dreaded white rain lol. Speaking of ratios, looks like the WeatherBell Kuchera output is back on the juice. Sent from my SM-G998U using Tapatalk

This would be an interesting case for ratios. BL temps look like they'd be 32-34 during the heaviest rates. 18z GFS Cobb output for actually showed raw snow ratios peaking at 11-16:1 due to the factors you mentioned, but little/no snow accumulation because surface temps never get below 34F. So I think something in the 8:1 range might be reasonable because you could end up with decent dendrites but the marginal surface temps knock down the effective ratio. For the LOT CWA, the most recent operational solutions look less impressive than 4/14/19 from a large scale lift perspective. There could be decent low-mid f-gen but it might be more transient. Mid-upper lapse rates look good (7+C/km). PWATs are decent for a snow system peaking at ~0.6". This looks like a setup that could produce pockets of 2 to 4 inches of snow based off strongest banding placement and these areas could see some road impacts. Downtown Chicago could see issues with accums for the same reason the recent November events didn't perform there, lake water temps are well into the 40s (52F today at Chicago shore), with a north-northeast wind direction forecast. Sent from my SM-G998U using Tapatalk

April 2019 showed well that very heavy rates overcome the August equivalent sun angle, so that's what we'll need to see continued support for to get noteworthy accumulations. Looking back to those events, April 14th got going early before the peak sun angles to put down a good base of snow and keep the ground colder for continued accums under heavy rates. April 27th didn't fully change over to snow until the afternoon and the rates were not as uniformly heavy, so overall road accums and impacts were less widespread than on April 14th. For Tuesday it looks like the snow will have started by the morning, so that could point toward a more 4/14/19 like outcome *if* the heavy snow materializes. I'm out of winter mode, so the only way this would be more tolerable is if ORD gets the amount needed to get to 50+" on the season. Sent from my SM-G998U using Tapatalk

The problem is that we initialize with NBM data 36 hours out and onward and the NBM has a bunch of models, ensembles, and MOS in it, so it'll always be too warm in this sort of scenario. I'm here on the evening shift and was briefed that the MaxT needs to be much lower but surrounding offices didn't want to make a big change, so there's that unrealistic diurnal precip type trend. Hopefully the overnight shifts populate with raw model data for the Tuesday MaxT if the 00z guidance holds serve.

Do you think they could have disclosed the information about the possible rare blood clot risk and studied it while allowing people to keep their appointments? Sent from my SM-G998U using Tapatalk

Just like America writ large, there's a divide in here between people who think Fauci is a clown and those who think he's beyond reproach. A clown he is not, but his mixed messaging lately plain and simple is not helpful in our country's efforts to convince vaccine holdouts to get the shots. That's how this has to be seen. There's not nearly enough focus on how remarkable the vaccines are. All people who have had the ability to get the vaccine but have chosen not to thus far are hearing from health experts and politicians is that fully vaccinated people have to be just as cautious as unvaccinated people. They need to do a better job incentivizing. Sent from my SM-G998U using Tapatalk

We haven't publicly released the data yet, but I'm sure it'll get a lot of attention when it comes out in May. The normal annual mean went from 49.9 to 51.4. Here's the full 1981-2010 to 1991-2020 breakdown for annual normals at ORD: 1981-2010/1991-2020 Max: 59.1/59.6 Min: 40.8/43.1 Mean: 49.9/51.4 Days Tmax >=90: 14/13 Days Tmax Days Tmin Days Tmax Precip: 36.89/37.86 Snow: 36.3"/38.4" Days >=0.01" precip: 124/126 Days >=0.10" precip: 69/72 Days >=0.50" precip: 23/24 Days >=1.00" precip: 8/8 If anyone wants me to post the full RFD data too, let me know. The normal mean there went from 49.2 in 1981-2010 to 49.5 in 1991-2020. Again in comparing ORD to RFD, this shows the huge UHI contribution at ORD. Edit: Please don't share this data beyond the forum. Technically wasn't supposed to post it while in the QC phase of the new normals release.

In the new 1991-2020 normals coming out, ORD warmest min in July went up 3 degrees, warmest max stayed the same, and coldest min in January went up 2 degrees, coldest max stayed the same. Meanwhile at RFD coldest min in Jan went up 1 degree, coldest max stayed the same and in July the warmest min went up 1 degree and the warmest max went down 1 degree. Very obvious increased UHI signal there for ORD. Normal seasonal snowfall at ORD went up 2.1" to 38.4", only 0.4" at RFD to 37.1". Normal annual precip went up about 1" at both sites. Sent from my SM-G998U using Tapatalk

The P1 variant in Brazil is clearly worrisome, however I think it's a bigger deal for the rest of the world than here. There very likely is a worst case scenario of overcrowding and subsequent care degradation in Brazil resulting in the mortality spike among younger adults. It does appear the variant is more contagious and likely is more deadly due to higher viral load, but there's no way to test how those patients would do with high quality care. Because of our rapidly expanding vaccination campaign, we should stay out ahead of widespread major issues like during the late fall and winter spike, current spike in Michigan notwithstanding. This consequently will keep hospital occupancy at manageable levels. I do worry though that things could get worse in other countries, including the EU, given their lagging vaccine campaigns. With supply set to no longer be a serious issue in the US, we will have to pivot some of our efforts to helping the global vax campaign. Sent from my SM-G998U using Tapatalk

There should be no debate anymore as to the efficacy of the vaccines. I'm not gonna jump in on the shaming of those who insist on waiting longer to get the shots, but at this point it's unfortunate there's still so much skepticism. The vaccines are our ticket back to normalcy. Hundreds of millions have gotten the shots and they've overwhelmingly been safe. What's really the benefit of waiting longer when they're being made available to all adults this month? If you're saying you plan to get the vaccine at some point anyway, why not now? Sent from my SM-G998U using Tapatalk

A percentage of the population not taking covid seriously (insisting on frequently gathering indoors, not wearing masks etc) made them more susceptible to contracting the virus in high risk indoor settings and part of the chains of transmission that resulted in large raw numbers of bad outcomes. It's pretty clear that even if the virus weren't politicized, we would've had many deaths, but every little bit of prevention would have helped mitigate our losses. I think the early testing debacle and politicization are two of the biggest factors in the horrific death count. Sent from my SM-G998U using Tapatalk

Considering that many restaurants stayed opened to indoor dining or reopened after many restaurants didn't abide by shut-down of indoor dining during late fall and early winter surge, I doubt that there will be much adherence to any new restrictions. The county sheriffs not enforcing the state mandates makes them pretty toothless and an easier call for many restaurants to keep business as usual. We're probably/hopefully little more than a month away from transmission really dropping here due to vaccine or natural immunity and seasonality. Sent from my SM-G998U using Tapatalk

When you say bad side effects, do you mean a worse than normal reaction? There's large variance in the common reactions to the shots, especially the 2nd for the mRNA vaccines, but those are just signs of the immune response kicking in. As far as me, I had a pretty typical, not great but not awful symptoms from the second shot (moderate achiness, sore arm, chills but no fever) for about 18 hours. Sent from my SM-G998U using Tapatalk

WGN TV, with over 1.1 million Facebook followers, showing exactly how NOT to communicate what was genuinely great news from the late stage Pfizer study. The takeaway is that the vaccine is 91% effective in preventing infection for at least 6 months, 100% effective against severe disease, and even appears to work against the South African variant. The headline makes it seem like the vaccine only works for up to six months and encourages a negative takeaway, such as that we're going to need to get vaccinated every 6 months, a common reply on the absolute shitshow comment thread. The media is generally terrible at communicating scientific information to non-scientists. When we're in the middle of working toward herd immunity in part by trying to reduce lingering vaccine skepticism, they need to do better. They need to understand that absence of evidence (effectiveness beyond 6 months in this case) does not mean that the evidence won't exist when more data becomes available. Sent from my SM-G998U using Tapatalk

Very steep (8-9 C/km) mid-level lapse rates are forecast to get advected eastward next week, so could be some solid hailers like 4/7/20 had if there's sufficient deep layer shear. Sent from my SM-G998U using Tapatalk

On our central region internal call this morning, the director of CRH said 'to not expect a fix to the recurring internet issues etc for the next 6 months to a year due to budget issues.' This issue needs to be elevated in the media and congressional reps and Senators need to be made aware of what's going on and how it could contribute to people dying unnecessarily in a severe weather or flooding episode or a wildfire. Sent from my SM-G998U using Tapatalk