hawkeye_wx

Most models are now showing the dry moat through central Iowa. An initial band of snow streaks across northern Iowa, then the main system organizes well south. I had been saying how Iowa needed the PV lobe to back off, but maybe it's a case of 'be careful what you wish for'. The PV is backoff off, but the main energy is digging even farther south.

The 12z FV3 has slowed the PV lobe noticeably compared to the 00z run, allowing the main energy to amp up a little more... definitely an improvement.

The euro is at least flat and weak with that lead wave compared to the GFS.

I was just going to post that. The UK doesn't appear to have that PV lobe crashing southeast through the lakes on Saturday. Iowa needs that lobe to back off as much as possible. Otherwise, that nice energy moving in from the plains is going to dive southeast and leave us with only modest snow from an initial lobe of energy that shoots out of NE/SD. Tonight's UK actually has that initial lobe of snow passing through southern MN.

You are right about that lead piece of energy and its strength having an influence on the main storm. However, also check out the GFS 500 trend to see the main energy going from tucked under the Hudson Bay gyre to holding farther west and able to be suppressed by that lobe crashing down from the nw on Saturday.

The GFS has been slowing the main energy in recent runs, trending toward the euro. If the main energy is not quick enough to sneak underneath the Hudson Bay gyre(previous gfs runs showed this), it'll tend to be suppressed more, like the euro.

12z UK is very similar to the euro.

Ryan Maue tweeted the 12z euro 144 hr map. That sure looks familiar.

The 12z FV3 is about as good as it gets... a series of snow events and reinforcing cold through the end of the run. That would make a lot of us forget about the first half of winter.

If we get a bunch of cold, dry power on top of the current snow, with strong wind, good luck measuring.

I finished with 4.8" from 0.46" liquid. Considering I was expecting 2" early yesterday, I'm quite happy. I still want to see some heavy snow rates, but this was a nice light to moderate daytime snowfall. When the wind is light enough to use my snow boards, I like to clear one or two of my boards in the 8-12 hour range, depending on how long the snow is expected to last. I don't clear every 6 hours, even though that is acceptable, because it feels like I'm cheating. For this storm, my uncleared main snow board finished with 4.5" while the boards that were cleared halfway (~8 hours) finished with a combined total of 4.8".

When the wind is relatively light, I use a few snowboards in the open part of my enclosed backyard.

This. Plenty of times during storms with ten hours of 0.5"/hr snow I've thought, "Yeah, this is nice, but give me some heavy snow." However, this is the first real snow I've actually seen fall this winter so I'm loving it.

Up to 4.1" here, still snowing at 0.5"/hr. I never even considered more than 4" a possibility.

There's a report of 14.5" southwest of Ottumwa in Iowa.