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Flew out of cle this morning. There was so much water vapor coming off the lake you could not see water. Imagine 200 plus miles of that dumping on wny. Noticed a little ice on the western basin shoreline.

Haven't had a chance to look at the models but hopefully we can get a wnw flow on thursday before the warm up.

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Flying back in CLE last night the plane went right through the mega band over the lake. Pretty cool sight heading in and out of the band. Not feeling really good about the LES potential... by the time the winds turn WNW'erly on Friday dry air and ridging look to pushing in. There will be a short window. The rich will get richer with the WSW flow.

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The high of 18 yesterday at CLE is basically unheard of for this early in November. I think that might have been the 2nd or 3rd coldest November high in Cleveland history, with the record occurring at the month's end.

I was flying from CLE the other day and you could see the very sharp cut off from lake effect snow cover to bare ground. Obviously that changed after Monday.

The CLE discussion seemed quite snowy for Friday. At this rate, with the ridiculous below normal anomalies, we'll unfortunately see a quick freeze over of Lake Erie.

Our lake effect event last week looks like a dusting compared to what fell just up the road south of Buffalo. I've always wondered if it's possible to get one of those types of bands going the length of Huron and then through Erie for more than a few hours between Sandusky and Lake County. Anytime there's a Huron connection it tends to be from Ashtabula on east.

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The high of 18 yesterday at CLE is basically unheard of for this early in November. I think that might have been the 2nd or 3rd coldest November high in Cleveland history, with the record occurring at the month's end.

I was flying from CLE the other day and you could see the very sharp cut off from lake effect snow cover to bare ground. Obviously that changed after Monday.

The CLE discussion seemed quite snowy for Friday. At this rate, with the ridiculous below normal anomalies, we'll unfortunately see a quick freeze over of Lake Erie.

Our lake effect event last week looks like a dusting compared to what fell just up the road south of Buffalo. I've always wondered if it's possible to get one of those types of bands going the length of Huron and then through Erie for more than a few hours between Sandusky and Lake County. Anytime there's a Huron connection it tends to be from Ashtabula on east.

 

That's seems to be CLE's trend lately... talk up the LES and back off as the event approaches. I don't see more than a 12hr or so window. And even then the winds seem to turn slower than what the models depict. The WSW flow looks to dominate. Hope I'm wrong of course.

 

It would take a unique set-up to get North/South band from huron down here.

 

There was slush on Sandusky bay yesterday morning so it's probably pretty solid by now. It won't take more than one or two cold shots to cap the western basin.

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I've neglected this lake effect event for various reasons, but, here goes:

 

post-525-0-01876500-1416469329_thumb.png

 

Detailed Discussion:

 

An upper level shortwave will move across the eastern Great Lakes this evening. At the surface, the models all agree on a surface trough moving across Lake Erie late this afternoon into this evening as the shortwave goes by. This is a common scenario. Winds will be WSW ahead of the trough, keeping any heavy snow confined to northern Ashtabula County points NE through most of the afternoon, before expanding SW by evening. Behind the surface trough, winds will go WNW, which favors Cuyahoga County points east for better snows. Winds gradually go W Friday morning and more SW by Friday evening, gradually pushing the snow north on Friday. Instability will become extreme Thursday afternoon and evening, and then become more moderate through most of Friday morning. Instability then really falls off Friday afternoon. Equilibrium levels will range from 10-13k feet Thursday afternoon into early Friday, and then begin gradually dropping Friday morning. Moisture looks good Thursday afternoon and evening, with deep moisture to near 9-10k feet. Moisture remains favorable to around 850mb through Friday morning before drying out Friday afternoon.

 

As is always the case, band development, location/movement and intensity are all key. We already have our band, and it’s burying western New York. Bands tend to develop southwestward towards Cleveland as a surface trough begins moving across the lake. Most hi-res models show this Thursday afternoon, and we’ve seen it play out before many times. This may allow heavy snows into northern Ashtabula Thursday afternoon. Elsewhere, we’ll probably have to wait until the trough approaches the lakeshore Thursday evening to see better snows develop. When the winds take on a northerly component behind a trough, a good band along the trough usually occurs as far west as northern Lorain County (and obviously across Cuyahoga County). Although I think the trough will go through too fast for the band to maintain in any one spot for more than a couple of hours Thursday evening, the strong convergence along the trough along with the very good instability/decent moisture discussed above suggest 1-2” per hour snow rates with any band moving through as the surface trough tries pushing inland. This suggests at least a quick 2-4” for Cuyahoga points east with the surface trough passage. The 0z NAM shows a period of -20 ub/sec omegas in the snow growth zone at CLE as the surface trough goes by Thursday evening, which is a strong signal for intense snow rates of easily an inch per hour.

 

Behind the trough, the question becomes, as it often does, how quickly does the band push inland, does it weaken, does it re-organize, etc…? The NAM and HRW’s, to go along with a couple of the 0z BUF WRF’s show a more WNW flow behind the trough. The GFS shows a more NW flow. Given a lake aggregate trough likely persisting downwind of Lake Michigan Thursday night, and surface ridging building in from the southwest towards Friday morning, I’m inclined to believe the NAM’s winds more than the GFS. BUFKIT shows well aligned WNW winds on the 0z NAM behind the trough, which suggests lake effect may try to re-organize behind the passage of the trough across northeastern Lorain/Cuyahoga/Geauga Counties. The hi-res models are iffy on this, the ARW shows this occurring and shows 0.5-0.75” of QPF across a good portion of Cuyahoga County, while some of the 0z BUF WRF’s hint at it but don’t show as much QPF. This will need to be watched, as lake effect conditions suggest rates of up to 1” per hour could persist in any organized banding into Friday morning, before gradually dwindling and shifting northeast as surface ridging really builds in. Winds will be a bit stronger behind this trough than last week’s event, which may try to limit organization of snow behind the trough.

 

For amounts…went with a quick 1-3” in western Cuyahoga/northern Lorain as the trough swings by…a quick 2-4” from eastern Cuyahoga east…and a bit more in northern Ashtabula where the band may start affecting sooner. After that, went with additional light accums in northern Lorain/western Cuyahoga Thursday night into early Friday, and an additional 1-3” from eastern Cuyahoga east due to uncertainty over if renewed banding can form for several hours later Thursday night into early Friday. Another issue to consider is that 850mb temps of -16 to -18C are perfect for high snow ratios in a lake effect scenario, which may help areas not along the immediate lakeshore accumulate snow pretty well. In general, I actually feel like I’m being conservative on amounts here, mainly due to the short duration and small margin for error. Biggest uncertainty is the southern extent with some disagreement on wind direction tonight behind the trough. Even though I went with the NAM which is more conservative in terms of bringing the winds around to a more NWrly direction, I'm worried the heavier snows may not get south of 422. We'll see.

 

“Fun images”:

 

NAM Omega (red contours)/RH (fill)/snow growth (purple/yellow lines):

 

post-525-0-80657300-1416469369_thumb.png

 

NAM wind profile:

 

post-525-0-43023900-1416469400_thumb.png

 

A BUFKIT “graph”…yellow line is the equilibrium level (45F water temp used)…scale is on the right…white line is lake-induced CAPE (scale is on the far left)…lines are winds between 910mb and 850mb (in degrees, scale is on the left):

 

post-525-0-93472900-1416469447_thumb.png

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Nice discussion as always. Looks like at least another snow cover replenish overnight.

Incredibly, the buoy between Lorain and Pelee Island is reporting a water temp of 39.7 degrees this morning. That likely means temperatures in the shallow parts of the western basin must be a few degrees colder and starting to freeze over.

I'm still amazed that we've gone one full week today with snow cover and that looks to continue through the weekend. Definitely an anomolous mid November.

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Nice discussion as always. Looks like at least another snow cover replenish overnight.

Incredibly, the buoy between Lorain and Pelee Island is reporting a water temp of 39.7 degrees this morning. That likely means temperatures in the shallow parts of the western basin must be a few degrees colder and starting to freeze over.

I'm still amazed that we've gone one full week today with snow cover and that looks to continue through the weekend. Definitely an anomolous mid November.

 

That amazing for November. Wish the depths were similar to the eastern basin. What amazes me about what's going on in WNY is that it is so difficult to get a perfect set-up for heavy LES, and yet they have had two in the same week, in the same exact location.

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Yeah, I used a lake water temp of 44F in BUFKIT. The central basin is still in the upper 40's, while the western basin is in the mid to upper 30's. Although the long range looks cold, the Euro and GFS still appear to show enough variability that the western basin shouldn't freeze through the first couple weeks of December...I hope.

 

For this event, the NAM winds probably suggest better banding getting a little farther southwest than what I show, but with the tendency for early season events especially to have banding hug the lakeshore a bit better, I didn't go as generous on the southwestern extent as even the NAM would suggest...so hopefully that bodes well for those of you in southern Geauga County and Trent along the western lakeshore.

 

The 6z BUF WRF's and one 12z run currently out all show banding through almost all of Cuyahoga County this evening as the trough moves through, with some semblance of banding re-stabilizing into Friday morning across northern Lorain/Cuyahoga/southern Geauga (if not even a bit farther SW than that), so hopefully that's a good sign again for those of you on the southern edge. If banding can persist tonight, a few 6"+ lolipops even in Cuyahoga wouldn't totally shock me. CLE has added Lake and Geauga to an advisory and bumped Ashtabula up to a warning, which are all right moves IMO, although I think they'll eventually want one for Cuyahoga too as the wind flow suggests the best convergence will be there overnight, and there should be a nice burst with the passage of the trough that far west too. We'll see. Busy week!

 

RE: For BUFKIT, to get the graphs, or plots of RH through the run, if you click the "overview" button in the upper right it will open another window with variables for the model run you're looking at plotted over the whole run for the station you're looking at. There's a lot of different things you can plot in the overview window once you open it.

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The 12z BUF WRFs that just updated are all consistent with a dominant band through most of Cuyahoga County, Lorain, and Geauga overnight.

It actually looks like CLE itself might be a bullseye. A top 5 snowiest November is definitely within reach.

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Yeah. That southwest bias shows up frequently. With lake effect fluff ratios, it doesn't take much QPF to get decent accumulations, so I think the forecasts for tonight are a bit conservative considering what has played out over the past week in the region.

I'm surprised Cuyahoga was left out of an advisory. The morning commute in one of these bands is going to be horrible, probably best to warn people now, rather than issue an advisory at 3am.

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Yeah. That southwest bias shows up frequently. With lake effect fluff ratios, it doesn't take much QPF to get decent accumulations, so I think the forecasts for tonight are a bit conservative considering what has played out over the past week in the region.

I'm surprised Cuyahoga was left out of an advisory. The morning commute in one of these bands is going to be horrible, probably best to warn people now, rather than issue an advisory at 3am.

 

Not sure why they don't at least issue advisories for the eastern half of cuyahoga. Strange. Anyway, things are looking pretty good with a healthy band over the lake. Now let's just keep that ridging from pushing in from the SW. Snow looks rather weak off of Lake MI.

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Including Tuesday, there have only been 4 days in November with highs in the teens:

 

15 on Nov 30, 1929

17 on Nov 29, 1929

17 on Nov 30, 1958

18 on Nov 18, 2014

 

This was by far the earliest ever a high in the teens was recorded in Cleveland, pushing the date up an impressive 11 days over the previous record. While record cold maxes tend to be overshadowed by record lows and record highs, this might have been one of the more impressive temperature records broken in recent memory. The previous record cold max for the date was 27 on Nov 18, 1903. This shattered that by 9 degrees, which for any record temperature is quite a feat. 

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It looks like the band hugged the lakeshore a little less than modeled. That's a first lol. It looks like eastern Cuyahoga/Geauga got ripped to shreds for a half hour to hour as the band swung south, so I'd imagine there was a very quick couple inches there. Unfortunately, the band wasn't very strong along the lakeshore, possibly due to somewhat stronger winds with this event and maybe the cooler western basin contributed too. The band has stabilized a bit across eastern Lorain/southern Cuyahoga/northern Summit into Portage, with light snow showers farther north. We'll see what the totals are in the morning. Areas under the band now will probably see the high end of what I forecast, while areas farther north will barely see the low end (especially the western lakeshore). Such is life with lake effect snow.

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We've had a pretty stable band from northern Lorain county east through southern Cuyahoga/extreme northern Summit/northern Portage for a good 2-3 hours now. With good 30dBZ echoes near the core of it and air temps down to near 20 inland from the lake I'd imagine this is 1-2" per hour snow in the core of the band. Unfortunately for Trent/NE OH/dta/Carumba/any other posters in northern Cuyahoga/Geauga, the models actually handled this band placement exceptionally well. It may wiggle north later as surface ridging starts building in, so we'll see. I'd have to imagine there will be some 4"+ amounts from just south of CLE to northern Portage...it's really too bad I'm home next week and not this week.

 

post-525-0-15513400-1416551683_thumb.jpg

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I knew it was over last night when I stepped outside and felt how windy it was. I have never seen LES bands hug the coast and provide decent accumulations when there are strong winds, they almost always move well inland.

Areas just south of the airport must have picked up close to 6", so at least snow did fall.

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CLE had 2.9" overnight, monthly total sits at 12.3" as of right now (this number always fluctuates at each climate report until tomorrow). That's good enough for 8th snowiest November, not bad for a spot that sits outside the primary lake effect spots for NE Ohio.

I actually hope the melt on Saturday goes quickly. I, like many others, still have a lot of fall yard work to complete.

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Looks like the lakeshore in general didn't do as well as expected. Inland areas did pretty well and saw at least the low end of the forecast, with a narrow corridor of heavier amounts where the band sat overnight:

 

...ASHLAND COUNTY...
ASHLAND 0.2 650 AM 11/21 SNOW SPOTTER

...ASHTABULA COUNTY...
PIERPONT 2SE 4.5 836 AM 11/21 SNOW SPOTTER
ROAMING SHORES 3.0 708 AM 11/21 SNOW SPOTTER
JEFFERSON 2.0 641 AM 11/21 SNOW SPOTTER
GENEVA 1.0 600 AM 11/21 SNOW SPOTTER
ASHTABULA 1.0 800 AM 11/21 SNOW SPOTTER

...CUYAHOGA COUNTY...
BROADVIEW HTS 6.0 855 AM 11/21 SNOW SPOTTER
PARMA HEIGHTS 5.0 750 AM 11/21 SNOW SPOTTER
EUCLID 5.0 834 AM 11/21 SNOW SPOTTER
SOLON 4.4 910 AM 11/21 SNOW SPOTTER
NORTH ROYALTON 3.8 719 AM 11/21 SNOW SPOTTER
CHAGRIN FALLS 3.5 803 AM 11/21 SNOW SPOTTER
GARFIELD HTS 1.5 721 AM 11/21 SNOW SPOTTER
CLEVELAND-OLD BROOKL 1.0 637 AM 11/21 SNOW SPOTTER
SHAKER HEIGHTS 0.5 752 AM 11/21 SNOW SPOTTER
LAKEWOOD 0.1 858 AM 11/21 SNOW SPOTTER

...GEAUGA COUNTY...
MONTVILLE 3.5 500 AM 11/21 SNOW SPOTTER
BURTON 2.0 800 AM 11/21 SNOW SPOTTER
SOUTH MADSION 1.5 616 AM 11/21 SNOW SPOTTER
CHARDON 2N 1.5 730 AM 11/21 SNOW SPOTTER

...HURON COUNTY...
NEW LONDON 3NW 0.1 604 AM 11/21 SNOW SPOTTER

...LAKE COUNTY...
MENTOR 1.0 730 AM 11/21 SNOW SPOTTER
MADISON-ON-THE-LAKE 1.0 725 AM 11/21 SNOW SPOTTER

...LORAIN COUNTY...
NORTH RIDGEVILLE 4.8 702 AM 11/21 SNOW SPOTTER
N RIDGEVILLE 2.3 739 AM 11/21 SNOW SPOTTER
ELYRIA 1.8 730 AM 11/21 SNOW SPOTTER
LORAIN 3S 1.4 724 AM 11/21 SNOW SPOTTER
OBERLIN 0.1 841 AM 11/21 SNOW SPOTTER

...MEDINA COUNTY...
BRUNSWICK 1.0 747 AM 11/21 SNOW SPOTTER

...PORTAGE COUNTY...
HIRAM 5.0 913 AM 11/21 SNOW SPOTTER
DIAMOND T 656 AM 11/21 SNOW SPOTTER

...STARK COUNTY...
WAYNESBURG 0.4 925 AM 11/21 SNOW SPOTTER
MASSILLON T 750 AM 11/21 SNOW SPOTTER
4 NW MASSILLON T 934 AM 11/21 SNOW SPOTTER

...SUMMIT COUNTY...
SAGAMORE HILLS 3.7 831 AM 11/21 SNOW SPOTTER
TWINSBURG 3.0 730 AM 11/21 SNOW SPOTTER
STOW 0.9 806 AM 11/21 SNOW SPOTTER
AKRON 0.5 700 AM 11/21 SNOW SPOTTER
2 NNE AKRON W SIDE 0.5 926 AM 11/21 SNOW SPOTTER
AKRON W SIDE 0.5 636 AM 11/21 SNOW SPOTTER
2 N CLE AIRPORT 0.3 757 AM 11/21 SNOW SPOTTER

...TRUMBULL COUNTY...
MESOPOTAMIA 2.0 727 AM 11/21 SNOW SPOTTER
WARREN 1.5 322 AM 11/21 SNOW SPOTTER
NEWTON FALLS 0.6 700 AM 11/21 SNOW SPOTTER

...WAYNE COUNTY...
WOOSTER 7N 0.6 806 AM 11/21 SNOW SPOTTER

PENNSYLVANIA

...CRAWFORD COUNTY...
CAMBRIDGE SPRINGS 6.0 801 AM 11/21 SNOW SPOTTER
MEADVILLE 5W 4.5 759 AM 11/21 SNOW SPOTTER
CANADOHTA LAKE 2.9 820 AM 11/21 SNOW SPOTTER

...ERIE COUNTY...
CORRY 4.5 927 AM 11/21 SNOW SPOTTER
AMITY TWP 3.4 910 AM 11/21 SNOW SPOTTER
NORTHEAST 6SW 3.0 835 AM 11/21 SNOW SPOTTER
CRANESVILLE 2.8 833 AM 11/21 SNOW SPOTTER
FAIRVIEW 2.2 846 AM 11/21 SNOW SPOTTER
MILLCREEK TWP 0.3 803 AM 11/21 SNOW SPOTTER
GIRARD 0.3 840 AM 11/21 SNOW SPOTTER

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Winds are really picking up. CLE upgraded everyone to a high wind warning. It's been a pretty eventful November. A couple lake effect events, a system snow, high winds, and maybe a thunderstorm today. I bet those high winds are churning the lake water pretty good. Need to get it primed for the next cold outbreak lol.

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Winds are really picking up. CLE upgraded everyone to a high wind warning. It's been a pretty eventful November. A couple lake effect events, a system snow, high winds, and maybe a thunderstorm today. I bet those high winds are churning the lake water pretty good. Need to get it primed for the next cold outbreak lol.

 

The winds are crazy right now. It looks and feels like Spring. Quite a change from last week. I'm ready for winter to return.

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I'm pretty optimistic about some snow accumulations Thursday into Thursday night in the Snowbelt. A shortwave will go by and bring a decent shot of low to mid level synoptic moisture Thursday afternoon and evening. 850mb temps will fall to around -10C which gives some instability off of Lake Erie, although it won't be extremely unstable like the last two events so we may not be able to pull of really heavy snow rates. The wind direction isn't extremely well agreed upon right now, but it looks like winds may start off NW Thursday morning before going more west for a few hours Thursday afternoon as a surface trough approaches, and then go more WNW or NW Thursday evening behind the surface trough. Lake effect conditions aren't eyepopping, but with decent synoptic moisture and fairly high EL's (around 10k feet on the NAM) it wouldn't shock me if parts of the Snowbelt pick up a few inches, especially if any sort of banding can develop.

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If we can get a moisture laden system to affect the area at some point in December, we'd probably get enough liquid equivalent if the pattern isn't otherwise dry to get into the top 10. We'll see, I agree it could go either way.

 

I'm still feeling decent about some accumulating snows over the next 36 hours or so. The models are trying to set up a bit of a possible Huron connection tonight into early Thursday across the central-lakeshore with light northerly winds. Instability is marginal, although with ELs around 7-8k feet late tonight into Thursday morning and decent low level moisture, to go along with a pretty weak flow, I could see some light to moderate bursts of snow in that area with 1-3" of accumulations through Thursday morning somewhere between Lorain and Geauga County, probably a bit inland from the lake.

 

Tomorrow evening a surface trough moves through with the winds backing to the west ahead of the trough and then going more WNW or NW behind the trough. ELs will come up pretty high with the trough passage, over 10k feet, although instability will still be weak to moderate at best, although there will be decent low to mid level moisture tomorrow evening as the trough passes. As I mentioned yesterday I don't think we'll see any really heavy snow rates tomorrow evening given the less than perfect instability, but moderate snow showers are possible, and the lighter winds may allow any bands or snow showers to not move too much. I could see another 1-3" or so mainly from Cuyahoga County points east tomorrow evening into tomorrow night. One concern is the NAM shows enough shear to possibly disrupt any bands, or else I'd maybe go with a 2-4" type amount for tomorrow night. It's not the greatest setup either way but better than nothing.

 

I don't really have time to draw a map right this second, but I'm thinking 1-3" from the northern half of Lorain County east through all of Cuyahoga, northern Medina/Summit east through the primary Snowbelt as well as northern Portage and Trumbull...and then 2-5" from eastern Cuyahoga eastward through Lake/Geauga/Ashtabula. The best chance for 4-5" will be in areas that "cash in" from both phases of the event, otherwise amounts will be more like 2-3" in these areas. If the banding with the trough tomorrow night is a little better than I expect then I could maybe see someone squeezing out 6" in eastern Cuyahoga or Geauga, but that's over the course of 30-36 hours, and is probably the best case scenario.

 

A couple of the BUF WRF's show a decent area of .1-.2" of QPF in the central-lakeshore counties through tomorrow morning with the possible Huron connection later tonight into tomorrow, and most of them show a nice flareup starting to occur at 7PM tomorrow as the surface trough starts dropping across the lake. The NMM and ARW both have a widespread .1-.25" of QPF from Lorain County eastward with locally a little more than 0.25". So, we'll see what happens, since I'm actually in Reminderville for this one.

 

EDIT: Here's a really quick sketch

 

post-525-0-29508800-1417033826_thumb.png

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