December 2017 Discussion

[RogueWaves]

Hit  -17F about 1:30 am before clouds rolled in. Getting some light snow now even, so may add to my 24.1" total for the month which will be about 240% of avg! December doesn't get much better around here for combined cold-n-snow, tho this region has had at least four (2000, 2008, 2016, 2017) to balance a rash of total duds during the same period.

[cyclone77]

After a very slow start to December it finished quite nicely.  Picked up 6.2" of snow during the last week.  The weather station only picked up 0.11" of precip, but adding a guesstimated 0.35" to that brings us to around 0.46" for the month.  That combined with only 1.13" in Nov made for a very dry final two months of the year.  Will end the year with 34.93". 

[Jim Martin]

Impressive look at the snow cover this morning on the Visible Satellite.

[Chinook]

Northern Minnesota

---

WEATHER ROUNDUP FOR MINNESOTA  
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE TWIN CITIES/CHANHASSEN MN  
700 AM CST SUN DEC 31 2017  

NORTH CENTRAL MINNESOTA     
    
CITY           SKY/WX    TMP DP  RH WIND       PRES   REMARKS  
BAUDETTE       CLOUDY   -28 -33  77 W5        30.60S WCI -43            
FLAG ISLAND    CLOUDY   -24 -29  76 W8        30.60R WCI -43            
INTL FALLS     CLOUDY   -28 -34  72 W5        30.60S WCI -43            
WASKISH        CLOUDY   -26 -31  75 W7        30.61S WCI -44            
BIG FORK       CLOUDY   -36 -44  67 CALM      30.59F                    
LONGVILLE      CLOUDY   -33 -38  75 CALM      30.63S                    
GRAND RAPIDS   CLOUDY   -29 -35  73 NW5       30.63R WCI -44            
CRANE LAKE     CLOUDY   -35 -42  67 CALM      30.63S                    
ORR            CLOUDY   -33 -42  61 CALM      30.55S                    
WALKER         FAIR     -31 -37  73 CALM      30.62S   

[Jim Martin]

11 minutes ago, Chinook said:

Northern Minnesota

---

WEATHER ROUNDUP FOR MINNESOTA  
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE TWIN CITIES/CHANHASSEN MN  
700 AM CST SUN DEC 31 2017  

NORTH CENTRAL MINNESOTA     
    
CITY           SKY/WX    TMP DP  RH WIND       PRES   REMARKS  
BAUDETTE       CLOUDY   -28 -33  77 W5        30.60S WCI -43            
FLAG ISLAND    CLOUDY   -24 -29  76 W8        30.60R WCI -43            
INTL FALLS     CLOUDY   -28 -34  72 W5        30.60S WCI -43            
WASKISH        CLOUDY   -26 -31  75 W7        30.61S WCI -44            
BIG FORK       CLOUDY   -36 -44  67 CALM      30.59F                    
LONGVILLE      CLOUDY   -33 -38  75 CALM      30.63S                    
GRAND RAPIDS   CLOUDY   -29 -35  73 NW5       30.63R WCI -44            
CRANE LAKE     CLOUDY   -35 -42  67 CALM      30.63S                    
ORR            CLOUDY   -33 -42  61 CALM      30.55S                    
WALKER         FAIR     -31 -37  73 CALM      30.62S   

Holy cow.

[Hoosier]

ORD is at 0.0 through the 30th, so today will push the temperature departure into negative territory.  Pretty impressive to reverse a ~+4F anomaly in the final week.

[Chinook]

It is -10 at MSP right now. The Viking team and the fans are probably pretty happy they have the new dome stadium today.

[Hoosier]

Interesting how "warm" it is in Chicago metro.  Have to go into southern Illinois to find comparable temperatures anywhere in Illinois.

[IWXwx]

A veritable blowtorch here with 16°. Progged high of 10°

[beavis1729]

1 hour ago, Hoosier said:

Interesting how "warm" it is in Chicago metro.  Have to go into southern Illinois to find comparable temperatures anywhere in Illinois.

Yeah, UHI plus relatively meager snow cover compared to areas further south. 

[cyclone77]

Temps overachieved a bit this afternoon.  Expected to barely make it above zero, but made it to 7.  A bit surprising given the fresh snow cover.  

[Hoosier]

6 minutes ago, beavis1729 said:

Yeah, UHI plus relatively meager snow cover compared to areas further south. 

Good point.  The real shocker is even STL, a place that loves to run warm, is running behind and they have even less snowcover than Chicago.

[Jim Martin]

Wind Chill Advisories for the next couple of days in Northwest Ohio.

[Chicago Storm]

Yeah, UHI plus relatively meager snow cover compared to areas further south. 

The immediate metro had LE cloud cover all morning and into the early afternoon.


.

[cyclone77]

Nice explanation from DVN as to why temps were a tad "warmer" than expected this afternoon on the IL side.

After a night of light snow, we only really has a few hours of
clearing skies to cool off, and the result was an extremely cold
start, but extremely shallow inversion to begin out day. The
Davenport COOP observing site run at our office reached -15F this
morning around 8 AM!  The shallow nature of the arctic inversion did
in fact still bring the milder than previously expected highs to the
eastern half of the CWA today, as we have climbed to the lower
single digits to around 8 in the east half. The west, were the
inversion had more time to set up, and corresponding greater depth,
has remained colder, and below zero thus far through 130 PM.
Upstream, the 1050mb surface high (observed), was located in eastern
Montana, and it`s ridge runs southeast to north central KS as of 18Z.

[michsnowfreak]

December finished with an impressive 23.3" of snow imby. It featured nearly all precipitation in the form of snow, but for a few hundredths of an inch of rain the first few days of the month, and most of the snow was powdery. Total precip was 1.63", of which 1.59" fell as snow. So while snowfall was nearly double normal, precip and temps finished below normal.

 

My calendar year precip finished at 37.43" and my calendar year snowfall at 46.3".

*************************************************************

 

For Detroit, the 22.5" of snow in December ties 1895 for the 5th snowiest December on record. Only 1974, 1929, 2000, and 1951 recorded more December snow.

 

The calendar year officially saw 35.46" of precip, which was just over 2" above avg. And the calendar year snowfall of 43.0" was right near avg, technically a half inch above.

 

I thought this was interesting. March, May, August, November, and December finished colder than normal. But due to several very warm months, including the 2nd warmest Feb & Apr, the year itself will finish 6th or 7th warmest on record.

[Chinook]

How long has it been since there has been a 1050mb pressure in the contiguous USA? (and not in West Yellowstone Montana, with huge SLP correction factors)

[Chambana]

Despite lots of sun, only managed a high of 2 degrees, windchills hovering around -10 to -15 all day. Picked up around 1/2” of fresh powder last night, freshened up the winter landscape a bit. 

Now the free fall begins. Low of -15 forecasted tonight. Everyone be safe tonight. 

[Hoosier]

11 minutes ago, Chinook said:

How long has it been since there has been a 1050mb pressure in the contiguous USA? (and not in West Yellowstone Montana, with huge SLP correction factors)

Good question.  Not sure.  I know the high with the 2011 GHD storm was over 1050 mb, but there very well could have been one since then.  1060+ is when it really gets into rare territory.

[Hoosier]

Despite a very dry September and December, this year will be the 15th wettest on record for Chicago with 43.10" precip.

[Chinook]

27 minutes ago, Hoosier said:

Good question.  Not sure.  I know the high with the 2011 GHD storm was over 1050 mb, but there very well could have been one since then.  1060+ is when it really gets into rare territory.

Possible answer to my question: http://www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/dailywxmap/index_20150107.html

Interesting runner-up candidate: 1047mb on January 23, 2014 at 15z

[osubrett2]

7.8” of snow in December at CMH, which is only -1.5” for all of 2016-17. 

[Jim Martin]

Last moon of 2017.

[Central Illinois]

I had a quick inch late last night...clearing out now so temp should drop fast

[Chinook]

24.1% of the CONUS was below 0 F this morning at 12z

[RogueWaves]

8 hours ago, Hoosier said:

ORD is at 0.0 through the 30th, so today will push the temperature departure into negative territory.  Pretty impressive to reverse a ~+4F anomaly in the final week.

I think Rapid City in SD erased a +10 departure in about the same timeframe! Wild stuff happens out there tho

[Hoosier]

 

Past week:

[Hoosier]

 

[IWXwx]

The CFS actually didn't do too bad with it's Dec. temp forecast, with the exception of the Pac NW and the Gulf Coast in TX and LA.

 

[michsnowfreak]

21 hours ago, michsnowfreak said:

December finished with an impressive 23.3" of snow imby. It featured nearly all precipitation in the form of snow, but for a few hundredths of an inch of rain the first few days of the month, and most of the snow was powdery. Total precip was 1.63", of which 1.59" fell as snow. So while snowfall was nearly double normal, precip and temps finished below normal.

 

My calendar year precip finished at 37.43" and my calendar year snowfall at 46.3".

*************************************************************

 

For Detroit, the 22.5" of snow in December ties 1895 for the 5th snowiest December on record. Only 1974, 1929, 2000, and 1951 recorded more December snow.

 

The calendar year officially saw 35.46" of precip, which was just over 2" above avg. And the calendar year snowfall of 43.0" was right near avg, technically a half inch above.

 

I thought this was interesting. March, May, August, November, and December finished colder than normal. But due to several very warm months, including the 2nd warmest Feb & Apr, the year itself will finish 6th or 7th warmest on record.

Snowiest December rankings from Southern Michigan

First-order sites:
Detroit (since 1880)- 5th snowiest with 22.5" (only 1974, 1929, 2000, 1951 snowier)

Flint (since 1921)- 5th snowiest with 23.3" (only 2000, 2008, 1929, 1951 snowier)

Other:

U of M Ann Arbor (since 1880)- 3rd snowiest with 30.9" (only 2000, 1974 snowier)

Battle Creek (since 1895 )- 3rd snowiest with 35.4" (only 2000, 2008 snowier)