frostfern

California really needed the rain, but the endless Pacific storm train really did a number on January. One of the most protracted boring periods in all my memory.

Anyone else find SAD especially bad this winter? Perpetually cloudy, bare ground, and in the 30s is the worst. It's just cold enough to make me want to sleep all the time, not cold enough to be invigorating. I'm not just being dramatic. I'm seriously depressed right now. Like I don't even know if I'd get excited about a snowstorm these days. Hard time caring about anything. Anhedonia and constant mental exhaustion for no reason is the worst. No end in sight.

You can have a ground blizzard with 3". There were some amazing drifts in spots Thursday morning despite not a ton of new snow having fallen yet.

There's been some heavy snow here over the past 48 hours. Probably 12" of LE fluff on top of the 4" of synoptic snow from Wednesday evening/night. The drifts are up to 3-4' in some exposed areas. The thing is the snow didn't really start to come down hard until after the wind died down a bit. Thursday morning was brutal in terms of wind and cold, but the snow was light at the time. Though there was a lot of blowing snow in the air, there was somewhat of a dry slot between the synoptic event and the lake effect event. It was nothing like GHD 1 where the strongest wind and heaviest snow occurred together. These 50-80 hour lake effect events have large totals, but they just don't really compare to a storm that drops its load all at once.

Im on the northeast fringe with this wind direction and its too cold to really accumulate anyways. Yea, the wind and pixie dust can really reduce visibility and make things treacherous, but I don’t care. Its all the misery of winter with none of the fun because the actual snowfall is a nothingburger.

Even the lake effect weak sauce. One of the bigger storm fails of all time. I couldn’t give two shits about wind and cold. The fact that there isn’t even anything to look at in fantasy model ads insult to injury.

Non-lake-effect big-dogs are rare as they are in most places in the Midwest. Chicago has been more lucky the past decade as far as getting the bullseye on the larger storms, but that wasn't always the case.

The main overrunning warm-conveyor is missing the US entirely, unfortunately. It's hard to squeeze a ton of moisture out of the cold-conveyer wrapping around from the north, but the lakes will help some hopefully. With such a deepening system there will probably be some intense frontogenesis bands on the back side pulling moisture off the lakes.

A lot of what's boosting totals here is lake enhancement. It's unfortunate the main WAA thump is so far north.

If it's the GFS, then yes. Everyone rides it when they like what they see and trashes it when they don't. When the ECMWF has a bad run in someone's back yard it's .

https://media.tenor.com/XeoO92P0kQQAAAAd/ice-cream.gif Someone post this. F’n file size limit.

I will lol. Models will probably continue to us until inside 12 hours.

Welp. Hope this is an overshoot and not a trend.

I kind of hate being right in the bullseye when it's still 100 hours out. It's bound to wiggle one way or another. A shift slightly NW would still be good if it really goes negative-tilt and the stacked low ends up due north. Wrap-around WSW-flow lake effect can really make up for the dry slot in this area. SE shifts seem more common at this range though. I so wish I could lock this exact run in.

Lock’m in.

Nice snowfall here in GRR due to ideal WSW wind direction. Also getting some seeding from mid-level synoptic cloud layers.

Ready 2 see the sun again. Such a garbage event.

This evening is about the coldest it can possibly feel while still being above freezing. Not used to this wind.

So much zzzzzz…

It seems totals around 20" are pretty widespread all along I-131. I-94 south will get a LOT more than 3-4" since this is fluffy snow now.

It feels like it's winding down up here. The peak squalls came through around noon and it's been winding down ever since. I saw a little sun peeking through the clouds even. There's still some nice big dendrites at times, but it's not steady enough to really put down. I-94 is still in the game for heavy snow for a while I think.

You're getting the wrap-around boundary enhancement effect now that a truly arctic airmass is undercutting the lakes. It's kind of a lull here now. I don't know how much more is to come here in GRR. The better focus might be south and west from now on.

GHD 2 was mostly mass south. There was around 7" total.

The latest squalls have pushed the total up to around 11" here. It's getting much fluffier.

I remember December 2008 being extremely active around here. The depth got up around 20" briefly before a rainer around Christmas destroyed it and caused a lot of roof leak issues..