hawkeye_wx

I can't imagine we've had many February afternoons in the low 60s with a northwest wind.

I was looking forward to getting some good rain with storms next week, but the models have trended toward pushing everything to the east too quickly. The Ohio Valley and eastern Lakes get storms, but farther nw we get nothing.

We are over-performing by several degrees today, now at 56º. It's going to be a very mild week.

The op GFS is really blowtorching the end of the month. It has been showing this for several runs. Frankly, I hope the heat gets dialed back quite a bit as we get closer. It's way too early for that.

I got 0.18" of rain, the first precip in three weeks. My area is still in extreme drought, so we'll take whatever we can get.

Euro - Kuchera

It is 65º here and I just heard a rumble of thunder.

The signal is there for a possible storm early next week, but models are all over the place from run to run. The op Euro just shifted from the deep south back to the upper midwest in one run.

Clouds and/or showers will be the one thing that could hold us down a bit on Thursday.

It's out there pretty far, but the latest op Euro, GFS, and GDPS (Canadian) all show a nearly identical Colorado low producing good snow across IA/WI/IL late next weekend.

For the second consecutive day, a stratus deck advecting in from the east killed our temp, holding us in the mid 30s. The east wind off the lakes can be a real downer in winter and spring.

We knew there would be a decent break in the pattern, including a thaw. However, there is absolutely nothing in sight for the north-central US through the next ten days, maybe even mid February. At least we get mild air over the near term. After that it looks like we turn colder but remain dry.

I picked up 0.57" of rain over the last 24 hours. My January total is up to 3.25"... very wet. My beautiful, deep snowpack is now very grungy and about 2/3 gone. Grass is starting to show in a few spots. Grass doesn't get greener than this in late January. It barely froze through early January (the soil was soft when the snow hit), and then the deep snow insulated it during the extreme cold.

Even at only 35º, our snow is wasting no time getting the melt started. The driveways and sidewalks are now clean, there is a lot of dripping, and the deep snow in the backyard has really softened up.

We got a bit of freezing rain this morning, but the snow part is a dud. It briefly switched to snow and dusted the pavement, but then switched back to light rain. We were counting on dynamic cooling, but the precip is too weak.

Models are generally trending toward a quick hit of slop around here Tuesday morning, perhaps in the 1-3" range.

I finished with 1.8". The best snow passed south. Des Moines got another 4".

Models continue to trend colder early next week.

00z Euro

My snow board maxed out at 3.5" yesterday and was down to 2.5" this morning, but I'm going with 5" for my storm total. Several reports from the Cedar Rapids area are in the 6-8" range. The 2.5" of "dry" snow on my board this morning had 0.43" liquid in it, for a 6 to 1 ratio. I always get a terrible ratio when there is wind, even if the snow is bone dry.

Several hours of solid snow late morning through afternoon added <1" to my snow board, so my board is officially useless. I'll just have to go with whatever the other Cedar Rapids area spotters report.

This storm has been a snow dud for a large chunk of east-central Iowa. Models really struggled with the placement of the heavy band. A couple days ago it was expected to be sw through northern Iowa, but instead it tracked through southern Iowa and turned north around the Quad Cites. We didn't get much from the WAA band overnight and accumulation from the defo zone has been iffy today. A couple hours ago I only measured 3.3" and I probably still have <4". The HRRR continues to show snow over us through late evening, but radar shows a big dry hole forming and moving into Cedar Rapids, so we may not get much more snow. Oh well. We got the brunt of the early week storm and now we get the other end of that. That's life. Update: There is a new 6" report from a few miles north of me. It's so frustrating watching everyone around me report significantly higher totals when there is wind. Where are these people measuring?!? I swear, we could get two feet of snow and my snow board will have 6" on it.

Unfortunately, the snow crapped out as it headed north overnight. Southern Iowa got a nice 4-6", but only about 1.5" here. Our totals have come down quite a bit. I'm just hoping for a few more inches at this point.

The Euro (including the EPS) and both NAMs have suddenly dropped a nasty dry hole over my area and cratered the snow total for Cedar Rapids/Iowa City. Other models are down as well. Tonight's surge of heavy WAA snow is veering more east into northern Illinois, so it's off to a shaky start. Instead of 8-12", latest guidance suggests maybe 3-6".

The NAMs actually dried out Iowa.