cyclone77

Huge snowflakes falling now mixed in with the rain.  Temp has dropped to 35.  Nice bright banding overhead on the radar.  2nd snow of the season and it's only October 15.  Not too shabby!

EDIT:  Snow is actually sticking on grassy and elevated surfaces with the temp now down to 33.  This will be the first accumulating snow of the season.

EDIT2:  Looks like about 1/3" so far.  Now all snow, but flakes much smaller but pouring down.

Picked up 0.06" of rain this evening.  Some light rain falling at the moment with a temp of 38.  Should get a brief period of wet snow at the tail-end of the departing precip shield in the next few hours.  We warmed to 50 earlier, and held in the mid to upper 40s until a few hours ago when CAA began to knock us back.  Forecast soundings showed above freezing temps up to around 850mb earlier, so the process of cooling the column is taking longer this far east compared to areas further west.  Looks like it will cool enough just in time before the precip departs.

11 hours ago, Hoosier said:

Pattern looks pretty uneventful for the next 1 to 2 weeks after tomorrow's system.  Forget severe or snow, there's not even much precip on the models. Lake belts could be an exception with some activity from time to time.   

We had a nice run the past month or so with the severe weather, excessive rains, early snows, and tropic tracking.  Definitely due for a down period.  Hopefully it won't last more than a few weeks.

1 hour ago, BuffaloWeather said:

I'll be going out west to the mountains this winter to ski and board. Should be fun. Also went to Iceland this summer. Got to hike up Europes largest glacier and drink fresh water from it melting away before our eyes. By far the coolest place I've ever traveled. Here are a few of my favorite pictures. 

 

Awesome pics!  

5 hours ago, Hoosier said:

Moline is reporting -SN

Had about an hour and a half of light snow at work.  Some pretty decent size flakes as well.  This is the first time I can remember us getting the first frost, first freeze, and first snow on the same date lol.

Crazy to think just three days ago it was 84 with dews near 70, and 89 last week.

Nice frost and freeze here.  Got down to 31.

31 minutes ago, Hoosier said:

Watching the trends on this evening's HRRR and RAP runs, they tend to mix in/change to snow in Iowa, but then the precip turns to all rain by midday/afternoon with eastward extent into IL/IN.  It's barely mid October, so that doesn't seem too crazy???

I have an issue though.  When you look at forecast soundings in the precip area, they have dry adiabatic lapse rates from about 925 mb to the surface with even a superadiabatic layer near the surface. That would not be surprising in sunny weather, but it looks pretty unrealistic with clouds/precip and with no marine influences.  

Yeah the superadiabatic layer wouldn't make sense.  With dews near or below freezing temps should crash pretty quickly with any precip that makes it to the surface.  The RGEM seems to handle precip types well, and keeps the snow longer than some of the other guidance tomorrow.  I'm expecting to see some wet flakes here around late morning, or early afternoon.

3 hours ago, XfireLOW said:

...and even more contrast further nw with 18" of snowfall in eastern ND.

Very impressive. 

39 with a wind chill of 30 atm, which is the coldest of the season so far.  Should have a hard time getting out of the 40s, which will be about 35 degrees cooler than Mon-Tue.  

Central Iowa was the place to be in 2018.

Hit 84 here today.  Dew of 69 at the moment.

Gotta love 80s in eastern Iowa with tornadoes, and mid 40s in northwest Iowa.

Pretty impressive to see 12" probabilities showing up on the WPC forecast this early in the season outside of the Rockies or lake belts.  

83 today.  What a change compared to the previous few days.

Looks like the snow chances for Fri have crapped the bed.  Typical early season mirage stuff showing up on the guidance.

0.19" here.  Back to the 80s today, which will be 20+ degrees warmer than yesterday.

The s word is now being mentioned in the new point.  Let's do it.

Hmm, 50s with cold rain and east winds today.  Tomorrow back to the 80s with breezy south winds and near 70 dews.  Same for Tue, and then by Thu may have a hard time getting out of the 40s.  Gotta love October. 

Only 58 here under thick clouds and a north breeze.  Lots of standing water around the area.

Luckily for this area the fire hose bumped a bit north/northwest which has given us a break from the rain the past hour or so.  Radar was looking a little scary a few hours ago.  The rains will return later on, but should be progressive as the whole thing will be shifting southeastward.  Looks like perhaps another inch at most now.

9 minutes ago, janetjanet998 said:

looks like training over you and right up the Rock River watershed

Yeah these downpours have been pretty intense.  Up to 2.07".

Picked up 0.69" early this morning, and this evening so far.  The storms in the area right now are extremely electric.  Non-stop thunder right now, with occasional crashes as well.  Looks like we're in for a very stormy night.

EDIT:  Up to 1.58" as of 9pm.  Good shot at 3-5" tonight.

Tonight's GFS showing a foot+ snow from northeast Nebraska up through Minnesota late next week/next weekend.  Pretty crazy to see something like that showing up on the models this early.  

That deep trough out west has the potential to spit out some very impressive storm systems over the next week or two.  We haven't seen the deep tropical moisture get shoved down into the gulf yet.  The wide area of summer-like heat and humidity with the associated high PWATs remains on the warm side of the baroclinic zone.  Also have the subtropical feed coming in as well.  On the cool side snows are starting to fall already.  Some models even dump accumulating snows, which will only act to enhance the baroclinic battle zone.  Maybe we'll see something special spin up along that zone in the next week or two if that trough remains.

After hitting 92 earlier, Sioux City is down to 46, with a wind chill of 37.  

Just picked up a quick 0.37".  Still raining, with some decent thunder as well.  

78/71 right now with a thunderstorm in progress.  By sunrise it will be around 50/40.  Big change in a short amount of time.

Sioux City gusting to 62mph with the cold frontal passage.  Impressive.

88 here, and 89 at MLI today.  Had a gust to 46 here on the home weather station, which is impressive considering it's only about 13ft above the ground.  

The record was never in play at MLI today, as the old record was a scorching 95 from 2006.

1 hour ago, TugHillMatt said:

Hi, all! This.is "blackrock" who used to post from West Michigan. Made the big move to the Tug this summer...so needless to say, I am excited for some 300 inch + winters and will definitely be joining in on your lake effect discussions.

Nice shot, Bo! Foliage is behind here...but has exploded in color the last couple days.

Very nice.  That looks like a pretty remote area.  Are you gonna have to stock up supplies in case you get snowed in for a period of time?  Doesn't look like there's too much around that area.