beavis1729

It's bad enough this winter in MSP...but I just saw that Mason City IA has 2.7" of snow for the entire season, and Omaha NE has 1.0". There aren't really enough words in the English language to describe how bad this is. Even worse, it applies to a wide swath of geography across the lower 48...basically coast-to-coast north of 40N outside of the lake belts.

Yeah...and the Midwest & northern Plains. Shockingly low snowfall (and even worse on the SDD front) in so many areas so far this season. Anchorage has only had 4.1" of snow since Nov 17th, with an approx +12F departure over that period.

25F with SN+ at Pensacola NAS, right on the Gulf, in the middle of the afternoon: Location Time (cst) Sky/Weather Temp. (ºF) Dewpt. (ºF) Humidity (%) Wind (mph) Pressure (in) Click on location name for the weather during the past two days at that site. Pensacola - Pensacola International Airport 14:53 Snow 24 19 81 N 14 G 23 30.41 Birmingham, Birmingham International Airport 14:53 Overcast 25 3 39 N 9 30.52 Crestview, Sikes Airport 14:53 Snow Freezing Fog 24 22 91 N 8 G 22 30.45 Destin, Destin-Ft. Walton Beach Airport 14:53 Light Snow 30 25 82 N 16 G 25 30.42 Evergreen, Middleton Field 14:53 Snow Freezing Fog 23 20 88 N 7 30.44 Keesler Air Force Base / Biloxi 14:55 Light Snow Fog/Mist 25 21 85 N 12 30.46 Milton - Whiting Field Naval Air Station North 14:56 Snow Freezing Fog 23 22 96 N 5 30.42 Mobile, Mobile Downtown Airport 14:53 Snow 25 19 78 N 14 30.49 Montgomery, Dannelly Field 14:53 Overcast 25 20 81 N 8 30.49 Panama City - Northwest Florida Beaches International Airport 14:53 Overcast 32 23 69 NW 16 30.37 Pensacola Naval Air Station 13:55 Heavy Snow 25 23 92 N 10 G 24 30.42

Yes, it does. The WC at ORD that morning was -57F on the new scale (-27F temp with 20 mph winds). It was in the -70s on the old scale.

What's even more impressive about this airmass (although I'd prefer to say "maddeningly annoying and frustrating") is that there's bare ground for an entire 200+ mile radius around MBY, and we still hit -10 this morning. There's no snow cover upstream anywhere south of 45N, and even where there's snow cover north of that it's not very deep/widespread. Usually when you get cold with no snow cover, the snow field is at least very close...which limits the temp moderation somewhat. In this current situation, we didn't really have that. This would have absolutely challenged January 2019 in many areas, imo. A good illustration is Orr, MN where it was -18/-36 yesterday with only 9" of snow on the ground. On Jan 30-31 2019, it was -22/-35 and -18/-42 with 14" of snow on the ground. So, while the temps were slightly milder yesterday vs. Jan 2019, there was a bit less snow cover.

Just to show what this airmass was capable of…it looks like Ely MN will post a -17/-36 today, for a daily average of -26.5. This may be a Top 10 all-time coldest day on record there. The max of -17 is even more impressive. While the -36 min would be great to experience, I imagine Ely hits -40 every 3-5 years (?) on average. I was in Grand Marais MN over the 4th of July this year. A beautiful area, and a nice cool breeze during the summer.

I suppose…but you’re making it seem like this type of pattern happens occasionally, and that it’s ok. Another example of our standards being beaten into oblivion after 8 years of bad winters. It shouldn’t be that way. It’s fine to have a 2-3 week period of cold and dry at some point in the winter, but that’s why you need to build a snowpack earlier in the winter. Then at least it would look like winter (and maximize the cold) if a cold and dry period occurs. We shouldn’t be normalizing bare ground in most of WI, MN, ND, SD, and IL in mid-January.

Congratulations - enjoy!

There are no words to describe how frustrating this is. It could have been a Top 10 arctic outbreak for our area, if there were snow cover here and upstream. The dump of arctic air will be in full swing Sunday night with a lobe of roughly -27 to -30 C 850 mb air waiting in the wings just to our north and west, and this will traverse northern Illinois fully on Monday night. From a climatology perspective, this is just about as cold as we`ve seen (at 850 mb) in the nearby upper air database (Quad Cities and Lincoln, IL). Out of curiosity, went back and took a look at the arctic outbreak from this time last year (January 14 - 17), which featured low temperatures in the -5 to -15 degree range and wind chills solidly down towards -30 F (and even lower than that on short time periods). 850 mb temperatures last year were actually notably warmer, generally around -20 C. They key difference was a widespread and dense snowpack which we obviously don`t have this time around, which just goes to show the power of snowpacks in altering these arctic airmasses.

Right, I hear you...but that assumes you have a snowpack to begin with. Considering it's mid-January, way too much of the Midwest doesn't (southern half of MN and southern 3/4 of WI, for starters).

Completely agree with your sentiment in spirit, but unfortunately here in barren Lake County IL there's only a dusting of snow cover in the shaded areas of neighborhoods, and essentially bare ground in all exposed areas. At least MBY (literally) has a thin cover. The southern 3/4 of WI is bare ground - just hard to comprehend. We should not be normalizing this. All of the nickels have been hitting the city and south. Up here, it has only been the occasional penny. My standards aren't as high as many think. Just 2" of snow cover would be nice, with cold temps - nothing more needed.

Fine to be optimistic, but I don't think you realize how horrible the winter has been west of MI. Much of the northern plains, MN, WI, and N/NW IL (especially far northern IL) has had very little snow cover outside of intermittent dustings...and when the dustings do occur, they sublimate in sunny areas. IMBY, I haven't had more than 1" of snow cover all season, and this will probably hold through the end of January. So while the upcoming pattern after 1/25 may look a bit better relatively speaking, who cares until it actually happens. And, even if it does, it's (yet again) too late to save the winter. This is the 2nd winter in a row where there hasn't been enough snow in northern WI for winter activities, where we've had to cancel plans. It's getting ridiculous. Bad enough for MBY, but at 46N in mid-January, 2 years in a row?? Cold and dry for a 2-3 week period would be ok if there were meaningful snow cover going into it, which is why it's so important to build a base in December...but we can't seem to do that lately either. This had the potential to be a Top 10 cold January if the entire source region and MBY had decent snow cover.

I’ll bite. Unfortunately for you and us in the Midwest, the angle of the cold may be too far east again…even if centered a bit further west than the recent cold. Hopefully you guys can get in on some upslope as the cold presses down, but otherwise the baroclinic zone may again be too far south for any meaningful precipitation north of 40N. Dry and very cold would be wonderful if there were snow cover, but it feels wasted with bare ground. Still a ways out, so plenty of time for changes.

Yeah, me too. I’m sure you’re aware of how great January 1950 was in Portland…hard to imagine something like that happening again!

And the Midwest, northern plains, Rockies, and New England. Take a look at a current snow depth map for these areas…it’s unbelievably bad. The southern 3/4 of MN has bare ground, which is shocking for January 9th. Even northern MN only has 2-4” of snow cover, when they should have 12”+. Unfortunately, it has been a horrible winter for a lot of areas. Hopefully things change soon for all of us, as it’s really getting ridiculous. Speaking for my backyard, we haven’t had a good winter since 2014-15.

Would be a more meaningful graphic if it showed snow depth days (SDDs) instead. It would probably show even more of a deficit in a lot of areas. Many areas in the Midwest and northern plains actually have bare ground or very little snow cover right now, which is unbelievably sad for the time of year.

Way out there, of course...and it's only one Op run...but the 0z Euro brings down the motherload Nice temperature contrast too.

Yeah, 6" on 12/19.

And possibly most of MN, WI, SD, ND, and N IL too. It's shockingly horrible and ridiculous, not much else to say. As an example, Minneapolis only has 8" for the season and has had 0 snow depth since 12/28, with no snow in sight. They've only had 9 days of snow cover so far, wiped away by the Christmas week torch. Even INL only has 3" snow depth...just incredibly bad.

Spot on - you took the words right out of my mouth. Hopefully the 12z op Euro is an outlier, and the 12z EPS isn't trending this way.

Not to minimize that extreme event of course, but it would translate to approximately -35F on the new/current wind chill scale.

Good stuff. 1/20/1985 was Chicago’s all time coldest temperature, -27F.

My issue with chinooks is not so much how long the associated warm temps last. It’s that they even occur in the first place, especially during the heart of winter (12/15 to 2/15). Any day 40F and higher is too warm for me in winter, and we’ll probably have 5 consecutive 40+ days next week. Not easy to preserve snow cover and frozen lakes with temps like that. I’m a fan of having a part of winter that is sacred and untouchable, in other words it should feel like winter simply because of the calendar instead of having to hope for a certain pattern or teleconnection. In July/August, 95+% of days feel like summer here. Would be nice to have that same experience in winter, at least for a 4-6 week period.

Yeah, the "too far east trough" has really hurt the winter so far in much of the country...essentially anywhere east of the Rockies outside of the lake effect snow belts. That's a big chunk of real estate. The chinooks in MT/CO have been crazy. Denver is +7.6F above normal for Dec so far, even vs. the warmer 1991-2020 normals...and this will probably increase even more by month's end. This creates two problems: (1) the "angle of the cold" is all wrong, so we're left with generally windy and dry conditions (2) the western ridge is so far east that, when the trough relaxes/kicks out periodically, the warmth floods in quickly. That's what will happen during the next week starting around Christmas. We finally had a modest snow in our neck of the woods, and were looking forward to snow on the ground for our annual New Year's trip to central WI...but warm air will wipe out all the snow cover during the next week, even up around 44N and most of WI. Similar to the past 2 winters, the winter sports industry (mainly snowmobiling) is getting whacked up there again. Most years, they have a solid 3 months of reliable snow cover, from 12/15 to 3/15. Very unfortunate. We need to shake up the pattern, and hopefully the trough will be further west in early Jan. As of now, it looks somewhat promising...but still way out there in model land.

Amazingly, ORD had 1,130 SDDs in 1978-79. Unbelievable winter.