Torchageddon

EC "dropping the big hammer" by issuing a blizzard warning for various areas of Midwestern Ontario and the snowbelts: 1:30 PM EST Sunday 24 February 2019 Blizzard warning in effect for: Dangerous snow squalls with blizzard conditions developing later today. Temperatures will plummet through the day behind a strong cold front. Snow squalls will develop later this afternoon and combine with very strong westerly winds with gusts of 90 to 110 km/h to produce near zero visibility at times. The most hazardous conditions are expected tonight, but will improve Monday as winds weaken. It should be emphasized that the most significant aspect of this event will be from the very poor visibility and high winds and not from the snowfall accumulations. Total snowfall accumulations of 5 to 15 cm are likely by Monday. This is only the second time I've been under a blizzard warning since I started following, the other of course during the ultimate winter event of my life on January 6 2014. I don't think it'll be as impressive but the greatest event of the winter is definitely incoming! The winds turned on here about 12:40 pm and they are picking up with howlings just starting. Getting wet snowflakes currently hours ahead of schedule.

My impression is this is underhyped so maybe things are really going to get out of hand later on.

My forecast point has been increased to 10ºC now (up from 4 and recently 8) for this afternoon. That was the plan. I even had the sun brake out for a moment a hour ago.

I do like the CFS trend of putting me right in the transition zone so maybe I can get in on some storm tracks for once. Also would like to have an insane roller coaster where the warmth coming next week doubles and I hit double digit positives and then some huge storm rolls in when the goodness ends. I keep daydreaming about March 2, 2012 for some reason today.

Are electrical power furnaces more common in the Midwest than gas powered? Our hydro rates in Ontario are far too expensive for those to be commonplace.

Nice, there are many sites that have become unbearable that would stand for taking raw data directly off from. If I undertake a forecast accuracy study I'd need to do that.

Absolutely ludicrous. I can't believe that's the HRRR's output. Large cities will be shutdown with that. That's a much colder run than my forecast point for Wednesday morning WC wise. Furnaces will be running continuously.

That product was amazing when it was first rolled out/in beta...that was really an exciting time for my uses in radar. Unfortunately they screwed it up when they finalized it by changing the colour table in such a way that it undermines the dbz rate just at a glance. It was actually a tad in the opposite direction previously but I much preferred that dbz table. I haven't been to Intellicast in a while but I'm surprised to hear they removed that interactive map altogether. I'm surprised it took this long before the corporate ruination took its course. I have no good radar anymore that is free to use as my remaining options are all putrid. Haven't come across any up and coming sites that replace the zombied ones. I bet WU was pretty awesome around 2000 but a few years ago when I was visiting it, an exploit occurred through the browser and put a miner on my machine. Our world is getting dumber.

I don't know if I've seen a slushy day as much as this, after my 6 inches of snow the rapid melt and rain just took walking out of the question. There is borderline flooding in certain low-laying areas. High elevation spots its extremely slippery. I thought today would be a good day to be outside since its going to be the warmest til the end of the month...I rather walk in the cold!

I didn't pay any attention to this system fully expecting a nothing burger. Anything hyped I give less time now if any. I totally ignored everything TWN was showcasing. I'm getting a few flurries from this winter storm and then extreme cold so a lose-lose.

That's a beautiful solution, not ugly! That exact phrase came to mind lol. Not that I disagree though, but I'd bet only a nickel. I'm in one of the snowbelts and there has been absolutely nothing of note this winter or fall. I can't speak for the areas further north but probably average non-dramatic LES. Every winter is a snoozefest here since 2015, zero redeeming factors to this loathsome season. Looking hard enough for something to point out, I have never seen a rapid cycle rollercoaster like this from freeze to thaw.

I read this last night not knowing that a sort of similar thing was about to happen to me (not exactly but whatever). Just before 5 pm I noticed it was getting very dark after the awesome mid-afternoon sunshine but I chalked it up to the time of year and early sunset. I then noticed a purple flash of lightning to my west and it looked just downright nasty. Not long after a nice CG bolt occurred closer to me (!!). I tried to check the radar but before I could the frequent lightning that was getting worse by the moment produced one of the craziest lightning strikes I've ever seen at a very close range: a large bolt within 500 meters hitting thankfully nothing with a kink in the center that produced sparks and vibrant electricity off the leader line!! I've never seen that feature in-person til today. This scared the **** outta me and I don't even remember if the thunder was loud or not because I immediately unplugged all kinds of stuff in record speed. One CG is a major warning but two is frantically getting everything off the socket. There was a severe thunderstorm watch but I don't know if a warning was issued. TWN never put us in a thunderstorm threat let alone a severe one. No forecast for thunderstorms at all...this came outta nowhere! It was a fast moving one with decent winds and heavy rain...even hail reported. On radar it was a rapidly moving arcing line of storms (broken lines/quasi-linear) embedded in broad showers. It almost looked to be a double line very tightly packed together. It appeared to be even worse to the south of me which I saw lots of lightning well after the worst had passed me. Leave it to 2018 to deliver the worst thunderstorm in December here (this is the worst thunderstorm I've seen for this month) with vicious lightning. I saw 5 or more CGs and many streaks of lightning that appeared fuzzy and thick. The rubberband effect is real, I was thinking our best storms would be off-season after the record-shattering quiet storm season in Midwestern Ontario. As usual our best storms/events are those that aren't hyped or forecast since I had no thunderstorm in my 36 hour forecast. Looking through twitter I don't see any evidence that any other region in Ontario got as bad storms as we did. At 2:00 pm this afternoon we got up far past the forecast high with 12ºC with light winds and almost entirely blue skies!!! I haven't seen that in over a month and a half so I made sure I took full advantage of it soaking up those rays. It was a tiny window of time too to get it. Everything lined up perfectly for both getting the maximum daytime high and the best daytime heating for those storms to rip through. What a crazy synoptic system.

I had a light dusting in the morning before it melted around 1 pm. Second accumulating snow of the season. This has now happened 3-4 times just this week where out of the blue the sun will come out fully right at 12:30 pm EDT! Its been totally overcast any other time of this week. Usually it'll be for a few minutes and each time its lasted around 5-7 minutes before going back under thick clouds. I think this is more than a coincidence, its +/- 4 minutes from 12:30 and yesterday it was dead on that minute. Today it was 12:27 pm. It shouldn't have happened on a day like this at all. It must have something to do with the peak sun "angle" of the day or exact mid-point of daylight and effects the climate briefly. Any ideas?

#1 is January 6, 2014 LES Blizzard here in my neck of the woods. I'll never forget that one, just delicious. Blizzard warnings from EC were issued in the morning. At 9:30 pm that evening it was the craziest stuff I've ever seen during winter, it was the only time something was as exciting for me as some summer events. The seconds that I keep thinking about was when the great shrouding occurred and blanketed any space outside where light became muted during the the consuming veil. After that event I should've fled down to Arizona and stayed there permanently. If I'd known that November 17-19, 2014 was going to happen say 6 months beforehand I might've traveled to south BUF to experience that epic event. At least I can say that I was above the historic bands in a plane at one point so technically I was at the coordinates where it took place as it was ongoing. Even those were something else.

It rained steady all day yesterday, dark. There wasn't a single break or stop to it until late. There has only been a few hours of sunlight during the last few weeks. Very most bottom shelf October.

I'm impressed with how well Willa is holding together now that its inland where TCs rapidly dissipate. More symmetrical than yesterday evening. I don't think that predicted wind shear did anything due to the increasing motion and angle of Willa.

On Wednesday it was one of those days where the weather changed every 5 minutes with all types of precip. cycling through. A few times some heavy graupel showers would come with some of them being the largest I've seen. Awesome blue hues near sunset that are incredibly rare around here. The forecast for yesterday and today was mixed up, it was suppose to be sunny with few clouds this afternoon and in the mid to upper 50s but we only had sun at noon and now its overcast. Getting colder too. I don't check my local wx daily anymore because they can't even get the next 12 hours straight.

With the s**t weather I'm having right now, I favor whatever gives me the most sunshine. I'm already counting down til Spring because this loathsome dunghole 7 day forecast has very little sunlight and a whole lotta the other! Draining is what I'd call it. Its gotten me to appreciate my beach Thanksgiving even more. In-between sucks, if its going to be dreary and depressing I rather get what Calgary just had with 40-60 cm of snow dumping or record shattering heat. I'd choose the latter though! Yet again this October is shaping up to be a terrible one (below average temperatures). It seems the past 6 years is on repeat mode having the same months having the same anomalies. November has been warm. The Canadian Thanksgiving long weekend heat was insanely great (even saw a tower with a well-defined anvil) and I made sure to absorb all of its gloriousiness before the turdstorm came rushing in.

My overnight low is forecast to be 72 with a humidex of 80...that's something since this weekend was freezing cold and had temps barely above 8ºC or the mid 40s. Its doing the exact opposite of what is typical of a day-night temp change - as morning comes it'll get colder and then be coldest during the afternoon tomorrow. Early this afternoon I had a heavy downpour that lasted 20-30 minutes and dark skies (overcast) beforehand. TWN had us 2 days prior for today at partly sunny with 20ºC high...

Some of the best news I've come across this month! Interestingly I had the exact same phrase before I read Michael's "good news to start the day!" line.

Raydar.ca has now been down for 3 weeks. I have no source for quality radar here now. Its either a pay-for tool or a Interactive java/flash radar that is worth anything.

Good breakdown of this trend, I enjoyed it. Its the new normal as its happening here as well and we have far less development in rural ON than ORD.

Today was amazing, top shelf for sure. The most pleasant day of this month. For whatever reason it smelled really good outside and a few noticed that. Maybe its because we're getting to that time of the year where heat and heatwaves produce incredible aromas outdoors. I'm looking forward to those hot days later on . This last weekend was absolutely garbage, far too chilly and dank. Ruins the mood plus its uncomfortable. Despite being drenched in sweat at times during the hot parts of summer I wish for that over last Saturday's offerings. I then look at PHX's 40-41ºC every day this week with full sun and wish it were so...to say I admire that climate would be a huge understatement.

Florence's SSD floater page loaded a day old image for AVN when I refreshed it a few minutes ago. Works now.

For some reason I found this to be funny. I didn't once think that Florence was going to make landfall as a CAT4/5 however I agreed with the severity outlined from the water impact it will have. The only time I'll ever believe that a CAT4+ is going to make landfall on the US mainland is if its literally 2-3 hours away from landfall at said intensity. How it stalls will determine if its the costliest hurricane in SE history.