OHweather

So, as an NWS met who routinely sends out climate reports for first order sites, including snowfall, this exchange was fascinating to me. We have 6 first order climate sites in our CWA that all measure snow. 3 are FAA contract observers, with the observers measuring the snow for the site. The other 3 are snow paid observers. The snow paid observers are trained to report trace depth and do so. The 3 sites with FAA observers do not officially put the Trace in their obs, however, they do note it in their logs. We call them every 6 hours to verbally get the new snow and depth and they tell us the traces. So needless to say, while I knew the T depth did not show up in the METAR and doesn't get pulled into our system, I had no idea that it's technically not a valid ob based on FAA standards that sometimes isn't reported.

Nice overperforming, fluffy lake effect event. I'm nearing 6"!

Looking back at mesoanalysis, there are some hints that there was a thermal gradient and some weak convergence at 700mb (which was right in the DGZ), so maybe that was enough, but it was a small feature and not modeled well. There was also some banded snow that got into the Canton and Youngstown areas that produced a few 4-5" reports. Otherwise, pretty meh. 1.4" here. I had the forecast during the day yesterday and the 12z guidance generally trended down somewhat with the QPF from prior runs, which was ultimately the correct trend. The radar had somewhat of a banded appearance upstream with a lot of sites dropping to 3/4 mile or less visibility so I was apprehensive to lower our snow much (especially since we already had an advisory out for most of the CWA), and we did have those two small areas of banded snow that produced a few inches, but otherwise this was a very boring synoptic snow that came in on the low end of expectations...though it was widespread at least and freshened up the pack a bit.

Got another 3" of fluffy snow yesterday into last night, though it seems to finally be done for now until we get our quick hitting synoptic snow later Friday. I'm at over 20" of snow for the month of January so far (about 22" by my quick math). Satellite confirms that ice in the western basin...pretty much completely frozen west of the Islands, with a decent area of ice along the southern shore east of the islands. Most of the central and the entire eastern basins are open, but ice will continue gradually expanding for the foreseeable future.

It's been a snowy week...almost 3" here last night into this morning. Ice will be an issue going forward, though shouldn't be too prohibitive to LES yet next week. However, with no warm ups in site (what a thing to say in winter around here) the ice will continue growing the next few weeks. There should be some decent LES next week, though the flow direction is unclear as it may be more westerly. I will be out of town Monday-Friday next week so we'll probably get crushed.

Topped out at 11.8” storm total here. Thought we had a good chance to crack 12” here, but never got back under any great banding for a period of time yesterday afternoon or evening.

The flow being closer to 300 degrees over the lake might be just a bit too far northwesterly for your area to jackpot, but I think the bigger issue was a more dominant to Lake Michigan running along the western shoreline towards like Medina County for a good period of time late yesterday into this morning, forcing the more organized band down there. As the flow backs and as that Lake Michigan connection decreases your area should have a better chance to get under whatever banding is out there. Activity won't be as intense as it was yesterday into last night, but a few fluffy inches are still on the table wherever any bands can setup through this evening.

Was in and out of a better band all night. 5.1” new, 10.9” storm total. Band has settled south of me but should tack on at least a bit more today.

The snow squalls were very impressive today. It got noticeably dark as they moved in, visibility dropped to no better than 500 feet at times, and some graupel even mixed in at times. I had 0.4" last night into early this morning, then another 5.4" during the day today. Lake effect bands trying to align now.

Folks in this approximate circle have been promised a fair bit of snow that they haven’t seen with a couple of the LES events this season, so I get it lol. Luckily this is not the same type of setup as those ones.

That squall was intense when it came through Macedonia. Brief near zero visibility.

Yes communicating that local variability to the public is always a challenge because people do tend to gravitate towards the highest number they see. Totals will definitely vary based on where bands setup, but I think most of the area will get a good amount of snow. There’s a decent amount of synoptic support through this evening and then a decently prolonged period of lake effect tonight and tomorrow. We should be good, can see the band starting to push south over western Lake Erie as the wind shifts. The vort max NEOH pointed out will help force bands onshore and also will add a good amount of synoptic support.

We still are on the outside looking in for heavier snow, but there's at least half decent potential for lighter snow up here. Would like to see any model other than the GFS show a more northerly solution to get excited. There could be interesting LES potential around Wednesday next week. Ice won't be prohibitive by that point, but will be starting to expand, especially across the western basin.

Euro ensemble trended a bit stronger with upper level confluence over the Upper Midwest/Great Lakes ahead of the storm, and resulted in a bump south.

Trends on the ensembles for our storm to dig a little/come in a bit slower, giving heights ahead of it more opportunity to rise as confluence lifts out to the northeast, certainly do support the notion of the apparent ongoing north trend. Euro ensemble trends: GFS ensemble trends: With that said, I don't think this thing is going 100s of miles farther north at this point, though the trends at 500mb do give room for last minute northward nudges at the least. One item to watch will be the little lobe of the polar vortex extending west towards James Bay. Trends in that could increase or decrease confluence ahead of our storm. More confluence makes a north trend harder (or could shrink the area of snow if the storm itself trends stronger/farther north but runs into a brick wall)...less confluence gives room for likely continued northward nudges. While the confluence lifting out could give the storm a bit more room to trend north, the relatively cold airmass in place ahead of the storm and the fact that there still is strong blocking and high pressure ahead of the storm still suggest low level cold will be tough to scour out. This synoptic setup screams a swath of significant sleet and freezing rain. While model freezing rain maps are almost always too aggressive on peak amounts and coverage of significant ice, the somewhat growing model signal for a wide swath of heavy freezing rain is likely foreboding of a swath of nasty ice somewhere given the synoptic setup.

Heh, luckily they're at the stage for another 12-24 hours where they can keep riding the watch and just say "highly impactful winter weather is likely" and not specify which particular type of highly impactful winter weather is most likely. Though given recent trends and how these things go, probably have to lean a bit more on the icy solution in the LSX area.

Yeah, I was worried the forecast was F’d when I peeked at the radar at about 8pm and the band was sitting over eastern Lake and the chimney of Geauga with nothing to push it back south. Parts of Ashtabula, Erie and Crawford got a good amount into this morning but it’s yet another poorly forecasted event for Cleveland proper. My event total was 1.9”, which for down here isn’t too out of line with the expectations. Should be a much better setup for the Cleveland metro and inland Snowbelt tomorrow into Saturday still.

Happy New Year! At the office in a valley in Brooklyn Heights, it struggled to change to all snow and we barely had a slushy coating on our cars. Just east of the Valley View bridge on 480 probably had close to an inch. At home in Macedonia at just about 1000 feet in elevation I measured 1.6", and a hill a mile or so to my east had noticeably more (at least 2"). There should be a decent uptick in lake enhanced snow showers as a little vort max goes by late this afternoon into this evening, transitioning to lake effect tonight. The lake-enhanced activity should spread inland a bit with a north of due west flow, though the lake effect tonight into Thursday morning should focus a bit farther north, from northeastern Cuyahoga into southern Lake and northern Geauga. It's not the craziest lake effect setup, but ratios will be fairly good and it should be persistent enough for 6-10" type accumulations where the band is most persistent...with lighter accumulations elsewhere from the lake enhanced flareup later today. The WNW flow setup Friday into Saturday should produce moderate to locally heavy multi-bands of fluffy snow across the primary and secondary snowbelts. Inland locales and higher terrain locations should do well. Again not the craziest setup, but it looks fairly prolonged and persistent with fluffy snow, and some embedded heavier rates within bands that have upstream connections. We will need more lake effect snow warnings for that period and secondary snowbelt counties are very much in play too.

Uh high yes um I'd like to place an order for 988mb just west of Cincinnati please and thx

There has been entirely too much to write about on these midnight shifts! Which is preferable to the other way around IMO

That type of setup CAN produce. The issue is there’s a lot that can go wrong. If the trough along the east coast is deeper or farther west, there’s less space for the storm in question to amplify and produce. Also, that kind of setup is quite dependent on the shortwave phasing and amplifying early enough for those who want more impactful snow farther west. So as Chicago Storm said, with that many moving parts at this distance it can easily fall apart.

Pretty good signal for periods of decent lake effect starting Wednesday or Wednesday night and lasting through Saturday with a west-northwest flow. It won't be a prodigious lake effect event, but the setup looks solid enough.

I've been terribly lazy about posting lately (something about working a lot of evening/night shifts during the holidays), but I still think we'll have plenty to track in January. The current torch is about as short-lived as one could've asked. We get into a lake effect pattern this week into the start of January, which I understand only benefits a select few. The January 6-10th period mainly favors the east coast with a couple potential storms, but there's some potential for both shortwaves to produce snow for the subforum if either can phase/amplify early enough. First one would be farther northwest than the second one: If we don't see a larger storm during that Jan 6-10th period, some clippers/lake effect should still continue. We probably need to get past the midpoint of January (so still 2+ weeks away as you said), but the storm track should shift farther west at some point with enough cold air still running around for it to be wintry.

Picked up another 2" yesterday and last night. So, 0.4" on Friday, 2.3" Friday night, 2" Saturday into Saturday night for a 4.7" event total. Fluffy snow. Geauga and inland Ashtabula Counties will be missed LES warnings due to the Huron connection

The physics background definitely helps I’m sure! I’ve considered it, but I do enjoy forecasting it full time (most days) and would likely need to go back and get a bit more education to do it. So I don’t have any current plans, but things change and who knows how long I’ll want to do these rotating shifts for.