frostfern

Midnight to midnight is a weirdly arbitrary figure though. I'd just like to see the number of times an accumulation over 12" happens in any 24 hour period. GHD 1 was the last event I can recall that pulled that off in GRR. It gets rare as soon as you get east of the major NW flow lake effect belts. Biggest totals here are mostly synoptic / lake-effect combos that occur over a 48-72 hour period. It's just not the same as when it comes down heavy all at once. GHD 1 was special because the bulk of it came down in under 12 hours with a lot of wind to push it around. Closest thing I've seen to something you would see on the east coast.

It's not fall though. It's been below freezing for weeks. The ground is frozen solid most places. Existing puddles will only make it more icy when the changeover happens.

Thank you. So I'm guessing that on the northwest end the dry layer that needs to saturate will be mostly between 850 and 700. The lakes should help keep it moist below 850. I noticed last year on the northern fringe of storms there was this big jump in totals going from the east to the west side of Lake Michigan. It wasn't necessarily classical lake enhancement either, just quicker onset due to virga reduction. You could even see it in the radar data aloft. In this case it definitely helps starting out on the warm side of the front as the incoming low-level arctic layer has to interact with the lakes more on the way in as the warm sector boundary layer is pushed out. The caveat is a low inversion height will allow a dry layer above 5000 feet to impede some.

Weenie prayers.

It's all about choosing the right model. Kind of like elections are about finding the votes to put you over the top.

I will pray. There is still old snow on the ground but the thaw tomorrow will do a number on it.

Its the LLJ from the northern stream low heading up into Canada. It would be one thing if that low was farther north than modeled, but stronger is probably detrimental.

Seems like it would take this kind of anomalous gulf moisture + arctic front, but with an actual bomb cyclone rather than this sloppy open wave. A deeper low would hook north and take the heavy snow north with it.

Even if the models get the positioning of synoptic features correct, the positioning of snow bands is hard to predict. If the frontal zone aloft is mostly stationary throughout the event the same heavy bands may persist over some areas more than others within the same general swath. Will be interesting if there ends up being a narrow band of really extreme totals in some places.

I bet the initial snow with the developing frontal zone will be somewhat convective. I sharp arctic airmass pushing in will sometimes do that. There may be some banded variability of totals within the bigger swath.

Now it's looking more like two separate events here. FGEN bands immediately behind the cold front, then a big break, then the snow shield from the new wave riding up the front. If it models shift it all southeast again I'm totally out of the picture.

It's just my own personal anecdotal experience that systems with a lot of front-loaded overrunning snow don't produce super high ratios regardless of how cold the column is. I don't know why, but the flakes are just different. Usually a lot of less intricate plates that don't aggregate as well as pure dendrites. I just prefer to know the actual amount of water being put out. 15:1 is usually the best it gets. I have never seen higher ratios except from clippers and lake effect.

This isn't a clipper so the Kuchera Ratio is probably overblowing the totals.

F off with that.

Lock it in please.

The weird thing about the '13/'14 winter here was there was only one double digit event in a 24 hour period. There was a lake-enhanced clipper that dumped 11" in a 24 hour period. The rest was all 2-5" per day for several days in a row style events, due to good synoptic+lake effect combos. The thing is it started in December and lasted into March. There were a few brief rainy thaws, but when it was cold it was almost always snowing. Starting in early February with little to zero snow pack it will take several blizzards to even get close.

2014 was nothing like this year though. That cold was accompanied by frequent snow. It wasn't this CAD garbage. It will take a ton of catching up to get the snowpack anywhere close. Would need several GHD style blizzards.

It's more than a slight warm up. Gulf is wide open. People who don't already have some snowpack don't care, but living where I do I'm more of a snowpack weenie, so thaws are upsetting. Maybe it will be ice. I'd rather not do that actually.

Don't need a SSW to have a cold spring. It's really a winter only phenomenon. The stratosphere is always warming after March because the sun is out again over the north pole. SST patterns are way more important by then.

I like the 24th system on the GFS for Michigan. Would be even better if it actually phased. It's hard to trust anything in a split-stream pattern though. It will just keep changing with every run until within 12 hours.

I think it was 0.01" of "snow grains" combined with drizzle here. The garbage that falls from the most uniformly bland and dreary shallow low gray stratus deck.

Warm sector high wind boosting temperatures into the 60s at night like in December?

I really hate days like today. The annoying mix of snow grains and freezing drizzle was enough to cause multiple accidents delaying the commute time horribly. Yet precipitation amounts are so meager there's nothing to show in terms of any additional white on the ground. Don't know why the storm track is so far north despite not being a particularly warm pattern. Always get this cloudy "unsaturated DGZ" garbage in the "warm" sector of clippers. I'm ready for sunny arctic airmass after this depressing crap. An actual synoptic snowfall would be nice at some point.

13" max depth IMBY from combo of lake effect events last week has already shrunk down to 3.5". Probably less than half actually melted. It settled to 7" even before it got above freezing. It was mostly air.

I'm calling it 13.5" here.