Booya! The 12z GFS has fully joined the Euro. A major wave moves into the pacNW, the eastern trough exits, but leaves cold air in place across the north, and we get a big snowstorm in the midwest.
It's still a week out, but, for the first time, the 06z GFS has joined the Euro in showing a much more amped wave moving into the pacNW, which then leads to a big event for the midwest.
The Monday night/Tuesday system may end up a bit more interesting than it appeared yesterday. Models had mostly gone south, with both the GFS and Euro showing nothing here. However, the Euro has jumped back north quite a bit and now has 2-3 inches of wet snow through central Iowa. The NAM agrees with the Euro. Other models are still south.
We are at least seeing the first tease of the season. The last couple Euro runs (and AI Euro) are the most bullish. The Euro then follows the storm with brutal cold... multiple days remaining below zero.
After the next week of mild air and light rain, the op Euro finally shows a major pattern change to active and cold...... and it STILL doesn't show a single dang flake of snow through the end of the run. It's unreal how difficult it can be to get snow around here.
We lost power for about 40 minutes. Tree branches have a good 1/4" of ice on them. There is up to 3/8" in spots. It's good that the icing is done. We have finally crept above freezing and the precip is diminishing.
The worst icing was over southeast Iowa, where as much as 1/2 to 3/4" of ice built up on the trees.
We got a solid glaze overnight, but it's not a problem for trees so far. The surface is also rough/bumpy due to a little sleet that got mixed in. We should get one more batch of heavier precip before the temp rises above freezing.
Iowa is way over-performing today. A couple days ago it was supposed to be upper 40s here. This morning it was raised to the low 50s. It is currently 59º. Central Iowa is in the low 60s.
The latest models have trended away from a good snow event. Instead, we get a fast zonal to nw flow that shears out any decent energy and suppresses moisture. This morning's Euro hardly has a sprinkle or flake here through ten days.
Tonight's ICON, UK, and Euro have all lost the strongly-digging second wave next week, which means no second storm or snow for Iowa. A second spin-up is delayed until much farther east.
I saw that the operational Euro got another upgrade a couple days ago. I didn't realize until today that range-extension was a part of it. The longer range for 06z and 18z is pretty nice. The 00z and 12z now going out to 15 days mostly just provides more fantasyland excitement, like the GFS. The day 8-10 maps are already low accuracy.
And now the Euro stalls this system on the Honduras coast and never develops it much. 24-48 hours ago this was looking pretty exciting to track, but it has come crashing down from that perspective.