OHweather

First frost advisory for the inland counties tonight, just days after we remarked how warm it's been staying. Works like a charm every time, although we will warm right back up in a couple days. GFS and Euro hinting at another warm shot, possibly into the 80s, in a week or so. Maybe we can get a more legitimate cold shot after that but I'm not holding my breath.

It's hard to believe we're getting into October now. It still feels like late summer; no really chilly days or nights yet, and there's almost no color either. I think this "hot stretch" hasn't been as news-worthy due to a lack of eye popping record highs...and also the drought improving before it really started getting severe (I think Cleveland was in "severe drought" for one week, and then it rained a fair bit). A few daily records were broken through the summer and into September, but I believe the hottest was 95. It was consistent warmth and mild nights that really brought up our average temp for the summer. Hard to believe that October almost always sees the first frost away from the immediate lake and sometimes even the first flakes with how warm it still is.

Looks like the 2nd warmest September on record at CLE, after the hottest August on record and hottest June-August period on record.

Here are radar images from when the storm was hitting your area the hardest There was a good amount of dry air in the atmosphere, so the downdrafts with the storms were strong. I don't see signs of any spin-ups on radar, and low level shear wasn't strong enough for spin-up tornadoes with a squall line. It looks like the line bowed out a little bit as it moved over Bainbridge/South Russel and also had a more intense cell with it at that point, which may have contributed to some locally stronger microbursts in your area. Driving around today in Solon/Reminderville/Twinsburg/Macedona and even towards Brecksville and down towards Boston on the tow path there were fairly numerous medium to large sized limbs down and a few trees here and there that were snapped...so I'd image there were fairly widespread 50-60MPH wind gusts over northern Summit County. I drove around down Pettibone/306/43 last night around midnight. Power was out in that area and there were a few spots where I saw several trees snapped closer together, likely indicating stronger wind gusts...possibly on the order of 70MPH or so. All of the trees appeared to be snapped in a W-E direction indicating straight line winds and not a tornado. This coincides with where the line started to bow out. The velocities are are from the same direction in this area at 40-50 knots...given favorable conditions for strong downdrafts, the bow echo on radar, and the fairly decent velocities to go along with pockets of more intense tree damage, this bow likely produced 60-70MPH gusts across Geagua County and into southern Ashtabula and Trumbull counties where there were reports of fairly widespread trees down. All in all not a terrible little event. Maybe we can get some more on Monday.

Man, you must've been in a local screw hole. 5"+ amounts to your west, east and south. The lake is warmer in the western basin so yeah that might've kept you warmer and made it harder for snow to stick.

Nice 2"/hour METAR at CLE a few hours ago.

Just so I'm on record lol. I'm off to the Hocking Hills and starting sipping my beverages already so I'm just going to post the map with no commentary. "Enjoy" I guess?

Nice little event last night turned into. Looking at the newer models right now and it looks like they've gone from pivoting the clipper snow band over the lake to doing it right over the central lakeshore. Someone could get over 8" if that happens. The downside here is that's a narrow band, and if it slips any farther south Cleveland and Geauga County see much less snow.

Wonder if you Geauga folk will wake up to 2" this morning. Been decent snow much of the night in spots.

NE Ohio looks to get dry slotted for several hours tomorrow evening, after perhaps a quick burst of snow along the cold front early in the evening, but conditions still look good for moderate to even briefly heavy lake enhanced snow late Friday night into Saturday as wrap-around synoptic snow wraps in. Lake-induced instability will be moderate, with inversion heights above 10k feet and deep moisture to over 15k feet through most of Saturday morning. The flow will be NNW, however Lake Huron moisture/synoptic moisture should keep good snow fairly widespread. The heaviest amounts will be in the higher terrain, where I can envision several hours of near 1" per hour snow occurring. My first thought is the lakeshore struggles and only sees a couple inches, but the higher terrain could very well see up to 6" or so. It will be windy, so it could be a very wintry scene Saturday morning with a good amount of falling snow and blowing snow.

This one is looking interesting up there for sure. The clipper may be accompanied by a narrow band of moderate synoptic snow, and there still looks to then be a period of lingering decent lake effect into much of Saturday behind the clipper. If the clipper snow hits northern OH, the combo of that and the LES could push some areas to over half a foot. Most of this snow falls Friday night so there shouldn't be much trouble accumulating, and ratios could climb decently by late Friday night and Saturday morning.

I said this about 6 days before this past weekend's cold snap and it promptly trended milder, so at the risk of jinxing another cold snap, from 4-5 days out, the cold air for Friday-Saturday looks pretty damn impressive and the potential seems to be there for notable lake effect for the time of year. The heart of the upper trough moving overhead Friday night into Saturday would, if it verifies, provide for a period of extreme instability and a pretty moist atmosphere. This looks like a short fetch event so significant amounts may be confined to where any upstream lake connections set up. Looks like a pretty potent vort max rides through the Ohio Valley Friday evening which may add some synoptic lift to aid the lake effect. I could see a setup like this producing half a foot of snow somewhere in NE OH or NW PA. The airmass will be so cold that any snow that falls at night would probably be pretty high ratio. During the day it may be harder to accumulate well, although highs on Saturday may struggle to hit 30, so if you get accumulations to start Friday night they may continue during the day Saturday. Anyways, here's what the GFS looks like in BUFKIT for Saturday morning. Can't get much better looking than that in December, so we'll see how much this changes

Had a tad under 2" here. Some 3-4" amounts in parts of southern Summit, Stark and Wayne Counties. Not really a noteworthy amount of snow but it fell quickly and was accompanied by thunder and lightning which made it sort of fun.

It won't be significant snowfall wise...but Saturday afternoon and evening could be pretty wild. The models have an extremely potent shortwave moving through, causing a surface low to ride by just to our NE. It looks like a combination of very strong lift thanks to the shortwave and cold front trailing the low could cause convective showers to develop along the cold front Saturday PM as it blows through northern OH. With 850mb temps around -3C along the front there could be small hail or graupel along with some lightning with those showers. Behind the front temps quickly become cold enough for snow. The models hint at lingering lift, probably due to another wind shift dropping down west of the low, along with a very deep unstable layer and some instability off the lake Saturday evening, which could lead to a period of off and on and intense snow showers, before the activity becomes more disorganized and lighter by late Saturday night. A little lake effect could persist into Sunday but it looks disorganized by that point. The wind fields Saturday late afternoon and evening behind the cold front look very intense. A very strong pressure gradient and strong cold air advection is a good combination for strong winds, and the NAM and GFS both have a period of 50 knot or stronger winds just off the ground Saturday evening. Any convective showers along the front could produce strong gusts, and then there may be a period of very gusty winds behind the front. We'll see how the models change...but as it looks now, the combination of snow squalls and wind gusts possibly pushing 60MPH near the lake and 50MPH inland could create quite a scene. I could see the higher terrain making out with 1-3" of snow by Sunday morning. Not the most snow but these very dynamic systems are always fun.

There's still time for it to change but the models remain locked and loaded on a pattern that would generally be favorable for robust LES next Sunday-Monday. If CLE escapes without an inch, it would be an incredibly short winter at CLE. Geauga County got accumulating snow in mid-November and almost seems like a shoe in to get some next weekend if the general pattern holds, shows you how dependent we are on the lake in NE Ohio. I know some of you have moved on to Spring, which is understandable, it'll be April in a few days, but I'm selfishly hoping for some LES next Sunday before I head back to Athens.

Although it's still far out and may change, the pattern has consistently been shown to feature a robust -EPO (western Canada/Alaska ridge) and possibly a -NAO for the first week of April. That's something that can support a decent April snow in northern OH. It's possible the pattern doesn't end up favorable, or that the pattern ends up favorable but smaller details don't work out, but there's probably an elevated chance compared to normal for snow the first week of April up there. I'm farther south and don't have the benefit of lake effect precip here, so I don't really like my chances down here, but up there it's something to keep in mind. I'll be home April 1-3, so maybe I can see some flakes then

Have been getting some decent snow showers at times through the morning and have about an inch down. As someone who likes snow, I always chuckle at other people who like snow saying they "don't want" a snow event at the beginning of March because it's too small...especially in a winter where Cleveland and the west side have been extremely snow starved. I understand 1-3" of fluff isn't the most exciting, but snow is snow and personally, I enjoy any amount of it. If you're really ready for Spring to start, it's coming in less than a week and a small snow tomorrow isn't going to do anything to slow it down. It just gives snow lovers one last bit to cling to is how I look at it. If we were going for an all time futility record I could see rooting for a miss. Although this winter should be bottom 5 or maybe even bottom 3 in the snowfall department, least snowy isn't possible anymore.

The tally for what I've seen in Athens is 22-23", and they haven't had any other substantial snow when I've not been there, so that's roughly where their seasonal total stands. That's actually a bit above normal!

There's a half decent lake enhanced setup late tonight into early Wednesday. Maybe someone in the higher terrain can squeak out 2-3". What a winter...

It's snowing pretty good in Chardon, with some on the roads and a good accumulation on the grass. Pretty sad if the lakeshore doesn't even squeak in 1" out of this.

It looks like the higher terrain is finally seeing better snow. I'd have to imagine accumulations of half an inch per hour are occurring, and moderate to briefly heavy snow in the higher terrain will continue for a while. Closer to the lakeshore it'll be more of a struggle.

Just so I'm on record, here's my map. Don't have time for any sort of a write-up, busy day and I have my own Wx issues here to worry about. I can certainly see someone jack-potting to 8-10" assuming any mixing issues at the beginning of the storm aren't too prolonged.

Looks like they haven't looked at any model runs since yesterday morning. They still have time to fix it this afternoon and get some lead time on the snow but they better get it right now and not wait till 4am to do it.

The Euro has an additional (after this morning) QPF of a quarter inch for CLE with the 0.50" line running from SW to NE through central Summit and Geauga.

You'd probably get two feet if that happened