hawkeye_wx

A band of heavy snow tonight dropped 1-3" in the Cedar Rapids area.  I got 2".  Unfortunately, I totally forgot about the snow and didn't see a single flake of it.  The flakes must have been massive.  This snow puts me 0.1" short of 50" for the season.

This little pipsqueak disturbance may ruin my no-snow-after-February streak.

The temperature across Iowa is underperforming today.  The euro had 60 in Cedar Rapids this afternoon, but it's only 50.  It had Waterloo in the mid 50s, but they are stuck at 43.  We are not going to lose the snowpack for a while longer.  The open areas are showing plenty of grass, but the yards are still covered with several inches in spots.

My total is 0.85".  Now I'm just waiting for the surge into the 50s and perhaps a thundershower later this afternoon.

A nice cluster of thundershowers moved through east-central/southeast Iowa tonight.  I experienced occasional lightning flashes for a good while, then a band of heavy rain dropped about 0.70".

2 hours ago, cyclone77 said:

Lots of people outside enjoying the weather today.  You'd think it's our first 70 degree day or something.  I will say it feels much warmer than the high of 40 with the strong March sun and no wind.  The backyard is down to just large patches of snow remaining.  The first time there's been this much grass showing since Jan 11th.

Our still-substantial snowpack held us down in the 30s.  I'm more than ready for the strong south flow to throw 50s up here Wednesday.  This glacier needs to go.  It will feel much more like spring when I can look out the window and see green again.

I picked up 0.50" of rain, short of what the models had been consistently spitting out.  It also was barely above freezing all day, so very little snow melted.

A- here.  We had the snowiest 5 1/2 week period on record from Jan 12th to Feb 20th, including a 7" storm and an 8" storm in the same week and 19.7" in a ten-day period.  Before the early February melt, we had an amazing, deep, fluffy snowpack, better than any other I can recall.  The negatives include the lack of snow before and after the epic period(We missed out on everything early in the season) and there were no real big snow events.  7-8" is nice, and it's "big" by our low standard, but it's still garden-variety stuff.  It took a lot of snow to build up the great snowpack, but the bigger January events underperformed and we couldn't even hit 5" in any event.  Cold-wise, the record-breaking cold in late January was great.  I'm glad this winter was not as consistently cold as '13-'14.  That winter, it was brutally cold after each storm, which made shoveling suck.  This winter I was much more comfortable while shoveling.

The first low pressure, on Saturday, will track too far south to bring much warmth up here.  However, the big low next Wednesday could really pull the warm air north.  Models have been suggesting 50s possible.  Tonight's euro has low 60s up to I-80 from Omaha to QC.  Add to that some rain, 40s dews, and wind, and our remaining several inches of snowpack would get zapped very quickly.

21 hours ago, cyclone77 said:

Last measurable snow was back on Feb 17th.  Unless something substantial happens in the final few weeks of March the all-time snowfall record at MLI looks safe.  Looked quite beatable the way things were going 3 weeks ago.  

Yeah.  The snow season appears to have ended on February 20th.  It's going to be generally cold for a while longer, but models have no snow here other than a dusting tomorrow.  This was certainly a memorable season.  We received 4 ft of snow, nearly all of it in a 5 1/2 week period.

The UK is also showing a farther south, frozen-precip-in-Iowa scenario.

Eau Claire nearly doubled their previous February snowfall record.  That's very impressive.

Down here, I've had back to back 20+" months, which is also very impressive.  Before this year, my last 20" month was February 2008.

Our snow season was pretty wild.  We basically had nothing until January 12th and it appears we may get little if anything after February 20th.  In between, we had 44".  I was hoping we could break the season record, but the snowstorm train has ended as abruptly as it began.  We haven't had any real snow since February 20th and, unless the GFS pulls a coup with the Thursday system, there's none in sight.  Models have been teasing more big snow several times since Feb 20th, but they've all gone north or south or fizzled.

The rule is... if the low is strong and wrapped up, it will cut right through Iowa.

The latest couple euro runs show not a single flake of snow for most of Iowa over the next ten days.  We've been the snow epicenter for the last several weeks, but now the script gets inverted.

The wind here has been howling since 1am.  The CR airport has reported a max gust of 60 mph.  There is very little snow to blow around here, though, as we only picked up a dusting overnight.  There is still a substantial snowpack, but it's rain-soaked and frozen so it can't blow around.

My rain total is 1.42".  Needless to say, our deep snowpack is no longer fluffy and picturesque.

4 minutes ago, AppsRunner said:

Very heavy snow in this band with excellent dendrites . 

I just checked the radar and noticed the yellow band parked over Ames.  The ISU webcam looks pretty good.  There's a brand new report from a NWS employee in Ames of 3.6".

I picked up 0.94" of rain overnight.  It's still only 33 degrees, so there wasn't a ton of snow melt.  The gutters are still full of ice and are dripping badly.

I am just expecting a decent rain event here.  The gutters are loaded with thick ice, so it'll be interesting to see how that works out.

3 hours ago, AppsRunner said:

A lot of people are going to get nothing from this storm other than wind. One or two people on this sub are going to get a blizzard. Do you feel lucky? 

Nope.

On January 11th my season snow total was 3.9".  On February 20th my total is 47.7".  This has been the snowiest period of that length on record.

My final storm total is 4.1" from 0.47" liquid.  I'll take it.  Now, on to the next storm.  Keep 'em coming.

My snow total is approaching 4".  The last band or two may get me there.  It appears much of Iowa under-performed.  There is a guy on the other forum about 30 miles wnw of Waterloo and he has 8.5", but there are a lot of 2-4" reports from areas that were under a warning for 6-8".  I feel fortunate to get 4" because we lucked out and got the intial band last evening while areas from Iowa City southward got stuck in dry pockets.

About 2 inches here so far.  A distinct dry band on radar is moving up from the south, but it's trying to fill in.  The HRRR says it'll stop snowing here for a couple hours, but we'll see.