The_Doctor

The snow map kind of looks like December 7-10, 2009.

Almost looks like a massive hook echo lol

Yeah, I lived in the northern burbs my whole life until moving to Indiana in January 2015 (maybe I'm the cause of the OV snowstorm drought lol). It makes it just a bit more brutal, especially since I've missed a couple of big storms up that way. But climo rules all, not much you can do about it and you do get used to it after a while.

I haven't been in a Winter Storm Warning since February of 2015 (partly due to being in the wrong place within the state during various events since that time). I did receive a surprise 6" in early April of this year (there wasn't even an advisory) but it would be nice to have a storm that you track for a while that prompts a Warning; I think half the fun with winter storms is the anticipation. Definitely want to break that streak this winter but part of me almost wants it to last until February so it can hit the 4 year mark.

KLAF gusted to 61.

Found this definition on the SPC website: "By definition, if the swath of wind damage extends for more than 250 miles (about 400 kilometers), includes wind gusts of at least 58 mph (93 km/h) along most of its length, and also includes several, well-separated 75 mph (121 km/h) or greater gusts, then the event may be classified as a derecho. " I think that the North Dakota and Southern Illinois storms would be considered derechos under this definition. Certainly a very active day of severe weather

I think IND has higher criteria for a warning. Not entirely sure though

it's been virga for a good 2 hours in West laf

Haven't measured but looks like an inch or so is on the ground. When I woke up there were some seriously impressive rates going on

I love the little circle of despair around LAF in both years

what about my area, stebo?

On the hazard simplification note I feel that "Winter Weather Advisory" is just unnecessarily vague in general, and especially so now that they are consolidating the Freezing Rain Advisory into it. It looks like their goal is simpler/fewer types of warnings/watches/advisories with more to-the-point detail in the description. To be completely honest I don't think the public cares too much about this stuff. I think they check the forecast for any sensible weather, i.e. "will it rain tomorrow" and leave it at that. When there's hazardous weather I think they sort of hear the type of advisory (i.e. they see Winter Storm Warning) and then they listen to their preferred TV weather man break down the threat. But my opinion is that they don't care too much about the hazardous weather except when it's a very newsworthy event directly affecting them. Just in conversations with people I hear them misquote forecasts all the time if weather comes up. For instance if there's a Winter Storm Warning and it comes up in conversation they might say "Oh yeah I heard we're getting another 6 inches tomorrow morning!" even if the actual forecast was for snow tapering off by 11 P.M. that night. Just the other day my professor mentioned that hurricanes Irma, Katia, and Jose would all bring hurricane impacts to the US when Irma was the only one that had a realistic threat of that (a Jose landfall was (and still is) way out of predictability range). I think he just saw a headline containing the three hurricane names but didn't investigate any more. This is the real challenge in making a WRN. The public just doesn't care at all about interesting/hazardous weather, and they're perfectly fine with only being generally aware of a warning/advisory being in affect and nothing more (with the exception of maybe Tornado Warnings, at least here in the Midwest).

forecasterjack really wants us to visit weather.us

A question I have is why on visible satellite loops areas far from the totality path appear to get very dark when on the ground there is not much (but still noticeable) dimming.

PDS Severe Tstorm Watch with 50% tornado probabilities was issued earlier (http://www.spc.noaa.gov/products/watch/ww0280.html). Has this ever been done before?