hawkeye_wx

3 minutes ago, Hoosier said:

What has your temp been like?  LOT was saying that ratios upstream were running less than 10:1

We peaked at 30-31º, then fell back to 29º during the better snow.  With the snow done, it's back to 30º.

I picked up 2.2" from the first wave.  The snow seems fairly fluffy.  I was hoping light snow would continue all night, but it looks mostly over.  Maybe I can pick up a couple more inches if the wave 2 defo band can get up here in decent shape.

I'm up to 1.4" now, so that's an addition 0.5" over the last 1.5 hours, a decent 0.33"/hr rate.  That will add up over several hours.

After six hours of precip, I'm at 0.9" of snow.  Of course, it's snowing and accumulating better now than earlier.

Real snow has finally commenced over here.

The snow is really struggling to get going over here.  For a couple hours it was mostly very light freezing rain and sleet.  Now it's just brief spurts of flurries.

The area of light precip moving through my area is flipping back and forth between very light freezing rain, sleet, and snow.... mostly non-snow.  At this point, I'm not expecting any snow accumulation until later.

6 minutes ago, Hoosier said:

I know some models had a strip of freezing rain near the front edge.  Let us know when it changes to snow.

It is switching to snow right now.

This snow will have trouble sticking to the wet, dark pavement, but there is still a solid glaze of ice over the snowpack and patio, so I'll measure there.

Precipitation just started here.  At first it was a mix of very light sleet and snow.  Now it is freezing rain with a bit of sleet.

00z Euro

43 minutes ago, A-L-E-K said:

Looks hot for IA

More like cold.  The main energy/moisture totally pivots around Iowa, dropping nothing on the state.  The upper low has taken a giant leap south compared to this morning's 12z run.

12z Euro

The GFS just doesn't want to budge from the mostly-rain event.

3 minutes ago, Cary67 said:

Have to admit I am skeptical of some snow event lasting 60hrs. And the NAM at this range whatever it shows is toss worthy.

I'm sure there will be some breaks.  Other models are showing a decent break after the initial wave.  Plus, the rotating spokes of energy will probably have dry moats mixed in.

At the end of the NAM run, there is still solid snow falling from Cedar Rapids to Chicago/Milwaukee.

The last snow system lasted four hours.  This week's event has the potential to last 60 hours.  Now, if we could just pair the 1"/hr rates from the last event with the 48+ hour duration of this one, we'd really have something.

The Iowa NWS offices are not excited about this long-duration system at all.  They seem to be leaning toward the warmer/rainy GFS.

The sleet over here has changed to freezing rain.  There's a nice glaze on top of the snow/sleet.

My snow total is 4.5".... a solid event.  It's too bad we can't get those rates for longer than a few hours.

The mix is surging northeast in Iowa.  Des Moines and Ottumwa reported freezing rain at 4pm and it's very easy to see the switch line on nexrad CC.  I just hope we can cross 5" before the switch occurs.

Another 1.3" last hour, up to 3.9" total.

Radar returns are generally weaker and not as solid to the west, but we could hit 5".

1" in the last hour puts my 3pm total at 2.6".

The back edge is already approaching , but we should get another couple hours of good snow.

I've picked up 0.7" in the last 25 minutes, so my rate is about 1.5"/hr.  If there's anything to complain about, the flakes are very small.

I picked up 0.6" in the first hour.  Solid heavier returns have moved over Cedar Rapids, so I expect the rate will increase to 1"/hr.  The visibility has dropped just in the last five minutes.

It's looking good for 3-5" in Cedar Rapids.  The snow has quickly intensified here in the last twenty minutes.

Will the warm flip back to cold again(and then back and back and back) or is the warm going to stick?

Last winter lasted five weeks.  Maybe this winter will last two weeks.