frostfern

Under the right conditions shallow convection can draw down impressive winds. It is different to see this in a post cold-front environment as opposed to narrow frontal squall line with a bomb surface low. An odd situation for the midwest. These shallow cold-pool severe weather events happen more often in the Pacific Northwest with late season cold upper lows spinning inland and interacting with stronger afternoon surface heating.

The early January lake effect was the one major snow event of the winter. Only thing it had going, but that pattern didn't persist. Otherwise it was a lot of CAD and a few nasty cutter wind storms.

Better now than in May.

The wind was kind of unexpected since most of the lighting and even precip was fading fast as the gust front approached. I could hear the roar and see the power flashes in the distance as it approached and had to scramble out of bed to bring loose things inside and unplug electronics. I think it was at least 60 mph.

Sick of winter honestly. I'm hoping for some warm days after next weekend. I'm hearing some spring bird songs today.

Maybe I can reel this one in. Im thinking it will be 4” tops at 8:1 though.

Are there temperature weenies here? I think most of us only care about snow. Jan and Feb were consistently below freezing with fewer thaws than normal, but there weren't many extreme events. There was no brutal cold outbreak and the only major snow event was a localized lake effect event. Nothing memorable at all, despite being a typical cold winter.

It's already weak.

Looks like one good lake effect event is all we get this year. Lots of clippers missing north and all the big dogs missing south. A big wet slop is still possible at some point but deep winter is over.

Not this year.

zzzzzz…. same BS as always.

Well yea. It's hard.

Maybe they are jaded because it always snows in their back yard. Some of them kinda dismiss events that aren't bullseyes for GRR itself. Lake effect is always lowballed in the grids too.

I agree. I just find it fascinating. Wish I had studied it in graduate school but I got stuck doing tropical meteorology.

I think there's even more factors. Southern stream synoptic events always have a fairly deep saturated isothermal layer below the DGZ while clippers have a very thin one. That isothermal layer seems to favor chunkier plates as opposed to spindly dendrites. They just don't form large aggregates the way pure dendrites do. You still get a lot of bigger aggregates mixed in within the heavier bands, but the abundance plates falling at the same time fills in the air gaps and lowers the ratios even so.

I would take that, but even GRR is now saying the GFS is overdone and going with a lower compromise forecast for the grids.

500 feet of downsloping there.

You mean orientation change.

It might end up being more of a battle ground with snow potential north of I-90. Less boring is good for me no matter what happens.

Would love this to verify, but some of that has got to be non-snow precip.

The local slope and surface vegetation has a huge impact too. Where the taller grass isn't fully matted down it tends to melt quicker because the dry grass poking through warms in the sun and melts the snow around it. Areas near pavement with a lot of tall grass always melt first. Wooded areas that don't have much grass or undergrowth and have a north facing slope retain snow the best.

It looks like the main wave will be inland somewhere around Vancouver by 18z Monday. It still has to loop down through the southwest at that point, which can be tricky to forecast. The more subtle northern stream portion will be headed due south over the northern Yukon.

It's hard to say what the average is. It's only 4" in more urban zones, but it's around 8" in the woods some places. The 16" of 20:1 lake effect fluff from early January didn't melt evenly. At one point it was totally gone some places and compressed to around 4" others. The 3" of concrete snow a couple nights ago added quite a bit to the piles even though it didn't add a lot of depth as it soaked up some light rain and drizzle the following day. There's a lot of really thick ice on my driveway as I didn't get a chance to shovel all the slush off before it froze hard. The light dusting that's been falling today somehow managed to make it even more slippery to walk on. Even the dog keeps flopping on her belly. Yea. It's kind of a weird setup with rather light winds but decent lake instability.

Yea. The OP Euro doesn't phase the jets at all, while the GFS phases too late and too far south for my liking. I really should stop obsessing over OP runs while the ensembles are still all over the place. The parent wave is south of Alaska at this point.

The crusty snow here varies from 3" in open fields to as much as 8" in some shady spots where the late January base never fully melted.