OHweather

Merry Christmas everyone! Nice to hear from you Trent. Only got 1.4" from this event. Disappointing, but the writing was on the wall yesterday and at least it's a sold white Chrismas with 2" on the ground and lots of blowing snow. It'll be very cold through next weekend with lots of little chances for snow and some LES, so I'm sure we'll keep gradually racking up some snow. Hopefully the LES through Wednesday eventually dips far enough south to affect some of us. The western basin will be frozen pretty good inside of a week.

Aside from the clipper a week and a half ago, not much has gone great for us this winter (though many sites will finish December near or a bit above average snow for the month, so it's added up some). Was pretty disappointing to watch the models steadily trend farther NW with this system the last few days. The LES will be interesting. Should initially affect perhaps northern Erie County Monday afternoon/evening before winds come around a bit Monday night and Tuesday, pushing it into extreme NE Ohio. Winds come around to NW over water Tuesday night into Wednesday which should push the convergence south into much more of Cuyahoga and Geauga Counties into Wednesday night before inversions finally lower enough to kill the LES. I'm not sure bands will be persistent enough in any one area to get totals near what CLE has. Instability will be moderate to extreme through Wednesday evening. Moisture depth and equilibrium heights are OK but not great, however, winds will be fairly weak maximizing residence time over the lake, convergence will be strong near the shore, and BUFKIT shows the best moisture and lift centered in the snow growth zone for much of the event. This combination of parameters will support warning criteria where this band affects over the next few days. Think Erie County will see some 12"+ jackpots where the band persists the most, we'll see if it moves too much for more. Also think there's a good shot that Lake County, northern Geauga County, and parts of Ashtabula County see warning amounts Monday night through Tuesday evening. For Cuyahoga County (and possibly extreme NE Lorain County) and central/southern Geauga County, parameters support a decent band through Wednesday evening...still some time to figure if the and gets that far south, but if it does (which most indications currently suggest) parts of Cuyahoga County may see warning criteria amounts as well...eventually.

White Christmas looking pretty close to a lock in northern OH with two shots of potential synoptic snow this weekend. Not thrilled about the Saturday potential but think we could see a few inches Sunday evening.

We've gotten zero good events locally to show for it too, which is the worst. Still some juice though and the lake temps should level off over the next week.

Really odd setup from Friday afternoon through Saturday, but it could produce warning criteria snows over parts of far NE Ohio or Erie County PA (famous last words, lol). First, a surface trough moves through Friday afternoon. BUFKIT shows steep lapse rates and moisture to 7-8k feet and through the DGZ and a half decent vort max will accompany the surface trough, so a round of snow showers producing 0.5" to locally 1.5" of snow seems likely Friday afternoon/early evening. Then it gets odd. A wind shift will get hung up over the lake near the southern shore Friday night through Saturday. The isobar pattern becomes oriented W-E or WNW-ESE which suggests the convergence band will affect Erie County, especially near the lake, and perhaps get into northern Ashtabula and northeastern Lake Counties. Many of the 0z higher res models eventually get this into NE Ohio and possibly as far south as around 322 or so. I'm honestly skeptical of this...the low-level cold over Canada will be strong, which does suggest the front/convergence surging south...however, the air will be modified by lakes Huron and Erie, and will be fighting rising mid-level heights and a weak pressure gradient north of the boundary, both of which argue against the boundary surging that far south. The location of this boundary is important because Friday night into early Saturday lake effect conditions will be favorable with good moisture and instability to 8-10k feet, which along with a long fetch and good convergence will support a moderate to heavy band. Beginning late Friday night and through much of Saturday, mid-level isentropic lift (basically warm air advection) will occur over NE Ohio and NW PA, causing light synoptic snow to break out. Lake effect conditions dwindle Saturday morning and become pretty weak by Saturday afternoon as the warming mid-levels cause the inversions and instability to lower, but where this convergent lake effect band is seeded by the synoptic snow it will likely remain moderate to heavy into Saturday afternoon before weakening by early evening. All in all, the ingredients are in place for this lake enhanced band to produce heavy snow at times from Friday evening through early to mid Saturday afternoon, with some shots of lighter snow elsewhere. This band may not move a ton and could produce warning criteria snows. Given model biases to push these bands too far south and my concerns about a lack of "oomph" north of the boundary to push it and the band well inland, I suspect this will favor northeastern Ashtabula County and parts of Erie County (likely closer to the lake) for the best snow. Elsewhere there could be 1-3" type amounts from the off and on synoptic snow. This is a sensitive setup and may move around a lot, and it may be hard to get advisories or warnings out until Friday afternoon or evening...but will be interesting to see if it can play out somewhere.

5.9" from the clipper...not sure I'll tack on any more with the LES to give me a 6" total. Definitely not bad for a clipper! Have around 8" in the ground.

Yes. Pretty good shot of moderate to briefly heavy snow for a few hours should put down a few inches, and at the moment that still looks in line to hit us...though farther south towards Akron they may get a bit less. Then perhaps minor lake effect adds another inch or so. 4-6" should be a safe call, could see some 6-7" amounts downwind of the lake if everything goes perfectly (which, lately it hasn't).

I got another 0.2" this morning to push my "event total" to 3.1"...knock on wood but I should easily do better with the clipper. Will wait for all the reports, but it looks like Geauga County generally only saw 4-8" total, maybe locally more in the extreme north but not widespread. Cuyahoga County saw from an inch or two along the lake to 4-6" in far southern and also probably 4" or so in some of the hills east of 271. A nice portion of Medina and western Summit Counties did well with a nice area getting 4-7" there. In NW PA, it appears about the eastern 1/3 of inland Erie County and extreme NE Crawford County did manage storm totals of 8-14" give or take...Corry did get over a foot...but near I-79 and west as MAIDEsNOW can probably verify, it was very underwhelming. Must've just been too much dry air even there...really wish we had decent radar in NW PA to see these events play out.

It would be a rather spectacular and pretty inexplicable fail if you don't get at least a few inches at some point tonight and an event total of say at least 8". For NE OH this is always a possibility with NW flow events if there isn't a ton of moisture around, but NW PA usually does better especially with a fetch off of Lake Huron. Not the first time this has happened in the last couple of winters, so I'd probably be frustrated too.

That band in parts of Medina and western Summit Counties has been doing well. I'm really glad I put 4-8" in that area because some spots could see another 4" over the next several hours under that band. Elsewhere it's been lackluster. Other bands are finally intensifying...one into Lake and the NE 2/3rds of Geauga and northern Trumbull, and cloud tops have really cooled over eastern Ashtabula and Erie County PA over the last hour so I'm guessing it's finally snowing there too. Lake effect conditions peak over the next few hours and then slowly dwindle after midnight...so the bands should intensify a bit more and then slowly weaken after midnight. Winds move very little until 3-4am, so anyone under the bands could see another few inches (a 6" amount with the SWern band into Medina and western Summit wouldn't totally shock me, and NW PA in the higher terrain should do well too). Big holes between the bands seeing next to nothing through, including pretty much all of Cuyahoga County.

Like any good NW flow event, looks like most areas will struggle to hit the low end of the forecast. We will see where the lucky few bands set up this evening. Half decent one in parts of Medina and Summit right now.

2.6" here so far. Still snowing hard at the moment.

I'm a bit late getting my write-up done on this one...though I did beat the first flakes by a few hours. At this point I may get a map zoom that includes NW PA by the winter of 2019-20...my guess for NW PA is 6-10" near the lake including the city of Erie. 8-14" south of I-90 in Erie County and the northern 1/3 to 1/2 of Crawford County...and 12-18" in the southern half of Erie County mainly east of I-79 and perhaps clipping far northeast Crawford County. I just haven't had time to outline a new base map recently to include that area. Here's the map and write-up: I have a hunch we'll see a few narrow bands that are capable of producing the upper half of those ranges, and that 75% of the area will fall on the lower half of their respective accumulation range due to the short fetch and some drier air. Discussion: Current water vapor imagery shows a potent vort max over IL that will move roughly east tonight, causing a low pressure to deepen as it tracks over northern OH late tonight. On the backside of the low later tonight low-level convergence, deformation between the vort max and anther shortwave currently near Lake Superior dropping SSE, and lake enhancement processes will result in several hours of snow over north-central and northeast Ohio. The deformation can be seen very nicely on the 500mb wind plots on the models, and the heart of it moves right over northern Ohio and Lake Erie between 6z and 12z tonight-Tuesday morning. This will drive light to perhaps briefly moderate synoptic snow across the lake and northern Ohio later tonight into early Tuesday. As the low passes to our east, winds will flip around to the NW after 3-4am Tuesday. There will be some increase in convergence with the wind shift, and also an increase in shoreline convergence downwind of Lake Erie and upslope in the higher terrain. This may result in a brief burst of better moderate snow with the wind shift itself followed by moderate snow continuing just downwind of the lake in the higher terrain due to convergence along the shoreline and upslope. Due to temps near freezing the snow will be on the wetter/low ratio side initially, though ratios will quickly go up Tuesday morning as colder air pours in. The deformation zone begins pulling away to the east by around 12z/7am Tuesday, which will cause the organized light to moderate synoptic snow to diminish from west to east to start the day Tuesday. While this occurs, instability will really improve downwind of the lake, which along with any lingering synoptic moisture should keep decent snow going mainly in the higher terrain. The snow will likely be rather disorganized due to some shear and a short fetch across the lake, but should keep going. A lowering DGZ should result in ratios beginning to improve as well. Although the deformation and organized synoptic snow should start pulling away around 12z Tuesday, a potent shortwave will cross. PVA/lift ahead of the shortwave, along with favorable moisture and instability profiles below 10k feet, should keep snow showers going downwind of the lake, particularly in the higher terrain. 700mb RH remains high until the crossing of this shortwave, and I think that moisture and lift will be enough to keep decent snows going in orographic lift ahead of this shortwave. With steepening low-level lapse rates, some briefly squally snow showers could also occur outside of any lake effect with this feature. After the shortwave passage late morning, moisture strips away both at the surface and aloft, which along with the brief period of sinking motion behind the shortwave should result in the snow being disrupted for a few hours. By later in the afternoon the winds become very well aligned out of the NW and instability becomes extreme, with equilibrium levels of near 11-12k feet and good moisture to about 7k feet. This should result in lake effect improving, however, the fetch is on the shorter side and wind speeds in the mixed layer are greater than 30 knots, making it questionable how widespread the lake effect will initially be. With some drier air and a shorter fetch/stronger winds, upstream connections may be critical to where moderate to heavy bands can develop Tuesday afternoon/evening. There will be a few corridors to watch: 1) Off of southern Lake Michigan into western OH…won’t do anything for Lake Erie, but will bring swaths of light accumulation to parts of western OH. 2) From near Traverse City to southwestern Lake Erie. This connection could be interesting, as the wind direction of around 300 degrees will favor convergence near the southern shore in the western basin…this connection and local convergence could allow a half decent band to form for a time from Huron County into southern Lorain County and parts of Medina/Summit Counties. 3) A potential minor connection with western Lake Huron/Lake St. Clair into the higher terrain of the primary Snowbelt. 4) A likely connection from Lake Huron into NW PA. Outside of any connections there will probably be some sizeable breaks in the snow late Tuesday afternoon and evening. There may be one last shot of synoptic moisture/lift Tuesday night, which could potentially result in a significant uptick in snow, but this may stay just east of most of NE Ohio. The models all show a vort max dropping south on the west side of the larger low to our east Tuesday night. The NAM (above) shows the better lift and moisture just grazing NE Ohio, likely resulting in some increase in activity, especially from Geauga County points east and definitely in NW PA, but probably keeping the heavier activity limited to a few bands. The GFS is a good 50-75 miles farther SW with the vort max and increased synoptic moisture/lift, and would likely result in a significant increase in activity in the Cleveland metro and secondary Snowbelt as well. The Euro is closer to the GFS, but perhaps not as extreme with how much RH it shows at 700mb. Regardless of the vort max, some PVA with the back wall of the trough later Wednesday night may also result in some increase in activity. The thermodynamic profile is quite good Tuesday night for lake effect snow, with equilibrium levels remaining above 10k feet to go along with lake to 850mb and lake to 700mb temp differentials of near 25C and 32-34C respectively, giving extreme instability. Winds also become well-aligned, and the wind speeds in the mixed layer decrease a bit (but still remain stronger than preferable given the shorter fetch). If we see a NAM-like scenario play out with the better synoptic moisture/lift not hitting NE Ohio well, we’ll likely see a few organized and intense bands play out, but with significant breaks between the bands. NW PA looks to do really well either way, especially where the Lake Huron connection comes in. If we see better synoptic moisture/lift into NE Ohio, then a more general moderate to heavy snow may break out for a few hours in the higher terrain, with any bands intensifying. Either way, the synoptic support diminishes later Tuesday night and moisture aloft does start stripping away, so we’ll likely go back to a more localized multi-banded setup later Tuesday night even if we do see a more significant uptick in the evening. Wednesday morning should feature just a few remnant multi-bands as we lose the synoptic support, moisture strips away above 5k feet, and inversion heights fall. There may be enough juice for a transient west to east band to flare-up later Wednesday morning and afternoon from Cuyahoga County points east/northeast as the winds back. With moisture below 5k feet and lift/steep lapse rates through the DGZ, along with a better fetch, this band could produce some additional accumulations. Seeding from mid-level moisture will also help potentially produce some accumulating snow with this band Wednesday afternoon. Winds will be backing pretty quickly and will be SW by late afternoon, likely pushing the band over the lake by late afternoon/early evening and keeping it from dumping on any one area before then, but this could lead to one last gasp of accumulations for some areas in the primary Snowbelt. AS FOR AMOUNTS… The synoptic snow should produce a general 1-3” for much of north-central and northeastern Ohio, even outside of any lake effect areas and along the lakeshore. In the higher terrain of the secondary and especially primary Snowbelt where lake enhancement/orographic lift will augment the synoptic snow, there could be a good period from about 2am to 10 or 11am of decent snows with improving ratios after sunrise. This could result in a general 3-6” in the higher terrain by noon Tuesday in NE OH/NW PA (secondary Snowbelt will see the lower end of that). As lake effect gets better organized Tuesday afternoon, will likely see corridors of 1 to locally 3” of additional snow through the afternoon from potentially Huron/southern Lorain and parts of Medina/Summit Counties points northeast. I think the best chance for 3” will be in the higher terrain of NW PA, most should see less during the afternoon…I just think the bands will be too localized for widespread heavier amounts during just the afternoon. During the night we’ll likely see at least a few bands with heavy snow persist most of the night. The area closest to a slam dunk for heavy accumulations overnight will be the higher terrain of NW PA due to a very high likelihood of synoptic enhancement to the snow and a Lake Huron connection, along with a longer fetch over Lake Erie and more terrain to wring out the moisture. In NE Ohio I think given the tremendous instability and well-aligned winds that two or three more intense bands will setup and may drop up to a few inches, even if we don’t get the better synoptic moisture and lift. If we don’t see the synoptic assist, totals in NE Ohio will likely vary from 1 to locally 4” additional overnight…locally could see more, but it would be very localized and is hard to pin down ahead of time. If there’s better synoptic support over NE Ohio as well, which the GFS and Euro do currently show, then a widespread 2-4” in the higher terrain with amounts of potentially over 6” in better bands would be on the table. For now my forecast will be a compromise solution with a general 2 to locally 5” overnight in the higher terrain of the NE Ohio Snowbelt, including potentially a band well SW of Cleveland as discussed above, with less than 2” along the shore. Will go for a general 3-7” in the higher terrain of inland Erie County and northern Crawford County PA overnight Tuesday night, but a locally higher amount is quite possible if a more dominant Lake Huron connection sets up for a length of time. On Wednesday have to think any band would be transient enough that additional amounts will struggle to exceed 1-3” anywhere. Will anticipate light additional amounts from the potential band in northern and eastern Cuyahoga County, Lake County, Geauga County, Ashtabula County, and perhaps Erie County PA. For storm totals…highest will be in NW PA, where I’m coming up with around 9-19” (will go with 12-18”). In the higher terrain in northern Geauga and inland Ashtabula County, I’m coming up with around 7-17 (will go with 8-14”). The higher terrain south of CLE in the secondary Snowbelt I’m coming up with 5-12”…I highly doubt the 12”, as the higher ends of each period after the synoptic snow are due to a potential localized heavier band, so I’ll call that area 4-8”. The NAM has that SWern band setting up from central Medina County into northern Wayne County towards Stark County for quite a while…think that is a little too far SW, but it’s not unheard of for a band in this type of flow to work it’s way down towards CAK in southern Summit County, so I will show somewhat heavier amounts in that area to account for the possibility. Will show just 1-3”/2-5” amounts along the shore in Lorain/Cuyahoga/Lake Counties, but bump up some farther NE where there’ll be better synoptic support during the lake effect. Will show amounts increasing in the higher terrain in southern and eastern Cuyahoga County due to better orographic lift. Could see a 10” amount in extreme east-central Cuyahoga County if banding can set up over that area for any length of time at some point.

Has been disappointing watching trends for this weekend. Conditions become reasonably favorable for LES Saturday night, but it's a brief window and winds will be shifting. Someone could see 2 or 3" in the Snowbelt, most will see less. Hopefully the Monday-Wednesday clipper + LES threat is more bustproof.

The upcoming LES is a half decent setup, but wind direction isn't our friend...it looks like the best snow will likely be north of route 6, and some guidance suggests the snow staying even closer to the lake than that. Wherever the band locks in from mid-Thursday morning through Thursday evening could see over half a foot of snow...assuming that happens on land and not just out over the lake. Lake County, northern Ashtabula County, mainly northern Erie County, and perhaps extreme northern Geauga County appear to be best positioned for this one. Elsewhere, we're waiting until at least the weekend.

Yeah I'm not optimistic for the Weds-Thursday event. Maybe better chances behind the clipper over the weekend and at times next week.

I'm glad you got some snow there in NW PA! Thanks for the kind words. Elsewhere there was a report of 3.5" in the middle of nowhere in NE Geauga County but most other areas were 2" or less which was a bit disappointing. And unfortunately down in Brunswick you really need at least a NW wind to get good LES. It'll happen a few times each winter and your terrain helps some but the best action is usually farther north/east.

0.6" here thus far. The snow has really wound down in the past couple of hours which I didn't expect so soon...the HRRR insists on it re-developing soon, but we'll see. The band never really persisted over me, just grazed me at times. I was down in Macedonia around 5pm and they had a little over an inch with moderate to heavy snow with big flakes still falling.

The RAP and NAM both have the winds backing a little bit more towards the W through about 6pm before veering to the WNW until late evening, so there's probably a weak surface trough passing. This may lift the bands a bit north over the next hour or two before they settle back south for a few hours later this evening. We should see the band consolidate nicely as the weak surface trough/wind shift approaches, and it sounds like it's starting to accumulate under the better bands. I'm in Bedford Heights now and think I should be in an OK spot. I'm still getting some graupel here at the moment and am hoping it changes to all snow as it cools a bit more.

Good hi-res agreement on 4" or so of snow with the band this evening, which I think seems reasonable. There's probably enough instability and snow growth for 1" or so per hour with the band, but I kind of doubt we see big 2 or 3" per hour rates. The NAM is impressive in that it doesn't move the winds more than 5 degrees in the boundary layer for several hours this evening, so the band should be fairly stationary which is why I think a few inches is a good possibility. The winds seem like they'll be in the 280-285 range by late this afternoon when the band should develop which may suggest it hits more of Cuyahoga County than my forecast yesterday...I may tweak that in a little bit. Edit: I'll go with this as my "final call"...we will see. Starting to see some signs of organization, need it to get a little colder so it can accumulate well.

Don't have time to elaborate much at the moment, but the lake effect looks briefly decent Sunday evening...here are my current thoughts (apologies again to those in NW PA for not getting a map background that includes you yet). The gist...not expecting much if any accumulation through early Sunday afternoon. Mid to late afternoon a shortwave approaches and steep lapse rates/moisture extend to about 7k feet (with higher lake-induced equilibrium levels of near 10k feet). With well-aligned WNW winds and a NW to SE oriented isobar pattern expect a band to initially develop over western/southern Cuyahoga and shift NE and become locked in from near Cleveland to the eastern suburbs into northern and central Geauga County during the evening as winds back to 270-280 due to the ridging building in on land. Favorable conditions with upstream moisture from Lake Michigan, moderate instability, moisture depth of over 5k feet, and some large-scale lift from the upper-level trough along with convergence with the band suggest moderate to heavy snow is possible through about midnight. Winds don't move much so someone could see a quick few inches with the band. Expect the band to shift up the lakeshore and weaken after midnight as ridging moves in, inversion heights lower and the low-levels dry out. In NW PA with more elevation, potential moisture from northern Lake Michigan, and a deeper layer of instability over the lake expect a similar setup with perhaps more widespread snow outside of the main band Sunday late afternoon and evening. Better moisture/instability last into Monday morning as one last little gasp of synoptic supper moves by, and the remnant convergence band should affect Erie County for a few hours early Monday. This leads to higher potential accums...am thinking widespread 3-5" in inland Erie and northern Crawford County with potential for locally up to 8" mainly in a narrow corridor in parts of Erie County if a more distinct band can develop for a few hours. Could also see a couple inches down to the lakeshore with the convergence band Monday morning. Eastern Cuyahoga/southern Lake/northern Geauga may flirt with the 4" advisory criteria if the band is persistent enough...I expect Erie and Crawford Counties to need an advisory, and with such a prolonged period of fairly steady winds and borderline extreme instability to go along with enough moisture, if a focused band develops some spots could get close to warning criteria.

The Euro will win this weekend with it's much quicker/weaker storm and less impressive LES event...though some snow is still likely. There may be a brief window of synoptic snow and lake/orographic enhancement late Saturday night into Sunday morning. Temps look marginal, the window is only a few hours, and rates only look light to moderate, so this may produce perhaps an inch of slush in the higher terrain downwind of the lake in Ohio and perhaps 1-2" in the higher terrain of NW PA. Still time for trends but at the moment that looks like an optimistic forecast. Some LES still looks likely Sunday and Sunday night. We get a window Sunday late morning and afternoon with a NW flow with moderate instability, marginally enough moisture, lift from a shortwave and perhaps some upstream lake connections. With the short fetch, marginal moisture, and temps likely above freezing I don't expect much out of that, but some briefly moderate to heavy snow showers that drop a light accumulation, especially in the higher terrain, seem possible. Accumulations may remain possible Sunday night as the winds back to the W and WSW and possibly focus a briefly organized band of better snow into extreme NE OH and NW PA, but lowering inversions and drier air will also limit that potential. Between the synoptic snow and lake effect I think this is a 1-3" event in the higher terrain in NE OH and perhaps 2 to locally 5" in NW PA, and those high ends may be optimistic. Closer to the lake may stay too warm for any accums.

The Euro continues to be complete garbage. Minor event. Normally the GFS is progressive and the Euro slower/amped, so this will be interesting.

This weekend could be a nice LES event locally...too early for a lot of confidence or for details though but it's one to watch.

Got a dusting here overnight. Still lightly snowing and hoping the Huron band can drop a light amount, but it's moving pretty fast.