hawkeye_wx

It's pretty crazy how something always seems to go wrong for Cedar Rapids.  It's a real struggle just to get a 6" snowstorm here.  6" just isn't that much, but it is here.  This one finally looked like a sure thing, but nope.

Cedar Rapids is now received a mix of sleet and freezing rain.

My total is 4.5" and it will only rise very slowly for a while as the mix moves in.

The mix crap has surged into Cedar Rapids, something I did not expect at all.  Our 1"/hr snowfall rate earlier has turned to garbage as the snow has turned into sleetish chunky flakes.  We can probably knock the 8-9" forecast down to 6-7".

2.3" here so far, 1+"/hr rate.

Large flakes ripping in Iowa City.  Radar shows pretty heavy snow over the area.

Light snow has begun to fall in Cedar Rapids.

The heavy snow band is pretty thin down here in Iowa before the system wraps up and becomes much more widespread in Wisconsin.

I'm going with 5 inches for Cedar Rapids.  The qpf range is 0.50-0.90", with the euro down to ~0.62".  We've had a forecast calling for 6-8" a few times this year, but each time we only received 3-5".  I'm hoping the ratio won't be as lousy this time.

33 minutes ago, cyclone77 said:

Now about 6-8hrs from the start of the event and it's still a little muddled as to what to expect.  The GFS has consistently been showing an all snow event for the QCA, and other guidance seems to be trending in that direction.  HRRR/RAP/NAM3 still bring the snow/mix line up to this area by mid evening.  RGEM still gets us into all rain for a period, but it has trended south as Chicago Storm pointed out.  Compared to yesterday the period of mixing is substantially less.  It would still appear the northern/western DVN cwa has the best shot at the most snow, but if trends continue the QC may end up doing quite well out of this yet again.  Apparently it's just one of those seasons when everything seems to trend in our favor in the final 24-48hrs.  

You can bet the Quad Cities will report at least 6 inches again.  Over here we have a decent shot at our first 6" snowfall of the season.

00z euro

Western Iowa up to Minneapolis have really had the rug pulled out from under them this evening.

00z UK....  shifted east like all the models this evening, but it's at the top of the qpf ranking

I'm not really concerned about mixing anymore.  The overall strength/qpf is more concerning now.

I expected 1-2" today and I received 1.4".

We didn't get a ton of precip out of this, but a nice batch of freezing rain did pass through for a few hours this morning, laying down a decent glaze.  A couple hours ago the temp began to crash and a band of sleet/snow moved through, with strong wind.

A few thunderstorms are rolling through eastern Iowa this afternoon.  I saw lightning and heard several rumbles, but the storm passed to my north.

My snow pack is down to 2" in my backyard, but any walking paths are grass and the open field near my yard is mostly grass.

For days, models had a rain event here late weekend, but we ended up getting only 0.01".

We've lost another 2" from the snow pack over the last six hours, so my backyard is down to 5".  We're sitting at 46F.

I lost another 3" of snow pack overnight, now down to 7".  The snow has no chance against 24 hours of moist 40s.

My backyard lost about 5 inches today.

Low to mid 40s felt darn nice.

I can't remember ever having a better-looking snow pack than what we have now.  It is about 15 inches of fluff topped with a layer of glittery dendrites.  I wish I could bottle this and break it out every winter.  What I would really love is to someday have a snow pack like this and then get a 12" storm on top.

It's nice to see Cedar Rapids did manage to hit -30F intra-hour Thursday morning.  For a while it didn't look like it would happen.  The temp kinda bounced around all night.

Yeah, big cutter this run, would be warm and rain for most in the subforum.  The 850 zero line even gets pulled back through the se half of Iowa.  It's so difficult to get the pieces to come together just right to give a biggie to Cedar Rapids.  The biggies are fun to follow, but we do much better with cold clippers.

My January snowfall total is 21.9".  This was the third snowiest January on record for Cedar Rapids.  Only one other month since I began recording my snowfall in 2007 (Feb. '08) has had a 20+" total.

Unfortunately, my internet was out for two days so I could barely follow this latest clipper.   However...

This was my favorite storm of the season.  Cedar Rapids went from an all-time record -30F to moderate to heavy snow in less than three hours, which is pretty nuts.  The entire event occurred when the temp was -10F to -5F.  I experienced a couple bands of moderate to heavy snow with large dendrites pouring down.  My storm total was 3.1".  The core sample melted down to 0.14", which makes the ratio 22 to 1.  As is often the case with weaker/sneakier clippers, the wind was light throughout.  It was just a beautiful several-hour snowfall during daylight.  I even got to experience an hour of moderate to heavy snow while outside shoveling late afternoon.