josh_4184

GFS still pretty bullish for my area, painting 40-50" somewhere near me and upwards of 70" in the UP. Ready to put my new snow plow to work.

NWL: Lake Mich usually take a while to freeze compared to shallow Erie but to not have Green bay covered with ice this late in the season is pretty crazy. Areas downwind of Ontario are going to get hammered.

Lake Michigan still wide open for business very little ice if any pretty rare this time of year.

I think the whole idea was to have consistency for headlines for people wouldn't get confused, a lot of people travel don't even know what LES is let alone a warning. However it seems that NWS BUF hasn't fully adopted it and doesn't do any favors by picking which headline they use for LES depending on the forecaster it seems. With that being said GRR seems pretty bullish on the LES chances which is fairly rare it seems for them. A poster eelier was posting a previous AFD from them stating LES would be cut back due to riding. Today they say: --Lengthy cold snap, coldest yet this winter-- The cold Arctic air mass is expected to impact the Great Lakes Region through the end of next week. High temps will be mostly in the teens with lows in the single digits or below zero and wind chills often below zero. It`s been quite a while since we`ve had a lengthy stay of air this cold and winter has been fairly tranquil so far, so definitely a big change. Ice on area rivers and lakes will continue to grow... see hydro section below. --Snow piles up over the next week-- Westerly flow lake effect snows are likely to persist into Friday night and Saturday with additional accumulations near and west of 131. Then we get another Arctic front coming through on Saturday which may produce a widespread/areawide 1-2" snowfall, followed by additional lake effect yet again in wrn sections Saturday night. After that, the thing to watch will be a clipper system sliding through southern sections Sunday night and perhaps even another synoptic snow event for Monday night. Some locations over wrn Lwr MI could easily end up with two feet or more of new snow by this time next week.

I do find it interesting how much earlier NWS Buffalo hoists headlines then APX. Also it does seem odd how they use both Lake Effect Snow warnings and Winter Storm warnings for the same weather events:. Most of Michigan NWS's switched over 100 percent to Winter Weather and Storm warnings for all snow events synoptic or LES.

Yea for my area earlier in the season for LES it tends to be more moisture rich with ratios around 15-1, as winter progresses and the lakes cool and the colder air comes it the snow tends to be more powdering like talcum powder. Doesn't accumulate as well and is a biT*& to see when driving in stronger bands. Of course a lot of this depends on the how cold the 850s are, how much RH, and if the snow is in the cloud layer or pushed to the deck creating much smaller dendrites. With that being said I am looking forward to our best setup of the year for decent LES.

Agreed. Most LES accumulation never even comes close to snowpack depth. I average 150-175" a year and usually only for about 1/3 of winter do I 30"+ depth, my area usually runs between 12-24 average depth. With that being said, depending on 850 flow(NW or WNW for my area) and being able to lock in for a day or so I have seen 2-3' easily in my area over a couple day period now that doesn't mean I will have a 3' snow pack due to compression but it will still be fairly deep especially with the 10" of glacier I have now. When snowmobiling around my area it was not uncommon to find areas near my house of chest deep snow untouched especially in wind/sun protected areas With the lakes as wide open as they are for this time of year with the cold coming in it will pile up, but the extreme cold and small flake size will cut back accumulation.

Definitely liking prospects for LES for most GL Belts. Along with some additional synoptic initially with the system through Friday I can see areas easily cashing in 2-3+" in the next 10 days. Depending how cold it gets, I venture to say the following weekend will be the best snow conditions of the year for my area barring any synoptic miracles after the PV leaves. 2nd weekend of Feb was always my go to weekend for snowmobiling when I used to ride and should be a great weekend this year.

GFS been showing some life for the snow belts the past few runs, painting my area with 50"+ of snow, obviously not realistic but its at least showing something. Hopefully Feb is a decent makeup for Nov,Dec, and Jan.

Just got done plowing, 12-15" of fresh powder on top of the 7-8 I got the other day. Tyr to get some pics tomorrow if I have time.

Im over 50" for the year now, but a lot of that was from the two early synoptic storms we got.

Yea I saw that recently Kalamazoo hasn't even had 12" of snow yet I was pretty shocked I am originally from Jackson and 131 always had at least 70-80" a year of snow. Tis week my area has definitely ate through some of the deficit, probably picked up about 14" so far the past two days and still hitting pretty good when I left for work this morning. May get another 2-4" throughout the day.

Been that way up here until recently, about 45" under average for the year so far.

Really ripping now for the past couple hours, 1-2" per hour rates. If this keeps up will have 12-16"+ of LES by morning. Little surprised APX hasn't upgraded the surrounding areas to warnings. This is where using LES advisories and warnings are more suitable then using winter storm warnings etc. Still don't like that they dumped those headlines a few years back.

Picked up another 4" today, another 4-6 thru tomorrow. Definitely feels like winter up here.

Have about 13" OTG now, deepest of the season, starting to look like winter around here again for the LES Belts.

Been snowing very heavy past hour l snowflakes size of silver dollars. 2” per hour easy right now.

Picked up about 5" overnight, looks like another 5-9"+ thru tomorrow.

Yea you area has been a better track for synoptic snow its mainly missed our area. Plus no LES equals bad snow depth, my house is about 2 miles from LON same here obviously. We do have about 7" OTG but trails are shot. This LES shot incoming should help a little along with the snow later in the week.

Cadillac as of this moment, will probably change after this week to somewhere around my area.

Look's like one of if not the best LES setup of the year albeit in Mi Jan lol. APX calling for 1-2" per hour, somewhere around my area will see a 12"+ easy.

Hopefully the upcoming potential change will improve for everyone especially the LES belts.

I'm holding you to this

Coming up on what is normally our coldest period of the year will be anything but the next couple weeks.

if I recall one of the reasons why NWS chose the location it did 9 miles SW of Gaylord was due to its elevation. They were able to get the Radar beam in a higher location compared to the city, due to the elevation differences nearby, especially were I am its almost a plateau it would certainly have negative effects on the radar beam performance. Kind of a similar issue that NWS Marquette deals with due to the Huron MTNs and they beam not able to pick up the low level LES in the Keweenaw area very well.