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January 24 - 31 Cold Blast


MNstorms
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FWIW, the 18z HRRR shows H85 temps of -36C over northern IL around 4z Wed, or 10 PM central time on Tuesday.

Here are the 18z HRRR temps, as far out as they go (6z Wed).  If this is anywhere close to correct, it's good news, as ORD and RFD won't have the dreaded midnight high when Tuesday turns to Wednesday.

sfct.conus.png

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Point forecast at Rockford down to -30 for Thursday morning :o


This Afternoon: Snow likely, mainly before 4pm. Patchy blowing snow. Cloudy, with a steady temperature around 17. Wind chill values as low as zero. North northwest wind around 15 mph, with gusts as high as 30 mph. Chance of precipitation is 60%. Total daytime snow accumulation of less than a half inch possible. 

Tonight: A slight chance of snow before 8pm, then a chance of flurries between 8pm and 11pm. Patchy blowing snow before 8pm. Cloudy, with a low around -6. Wind chill values as low as -22. West wind 10 to 15 mph, with gusts as high as 30 mph. Chance of precipitation is 20%.

Tuesday: Light snow likely with intermittent snow showers after noon. Partly sunny and cold, with a temperature rising to near -3 by noon, then falling to around -7 during the remainder of the day. Wind chill values as low as -30. Blustery, with a west wind 15 to 20 mph, with gusts as high as 30 mph. Chance of precipitation is 60%. Little or no snow accumulation expected. 

Tuesday Night: A chance of flurries before midnight. Mostly cloudy, with a low around -26. Wind chill values as low as -50. West northwest wind around 15 mph, with gusts as high as 30 mph. 

Wednesday: Mostly sunny and cold, with a high near -15. West wind around 15 mph, with gusts as high as 25 mph. 

Wednesday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around -30.

Thursday: Mostly sunny and cold, with a high near -4.

Thursday Night: A chance of snow. Cloudy, with a low around -9.

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4 minutes ago, beavis1729 said:

Point forecast at Rockford down to -30 for Thursday morning :o


This Afternoon: Snow likely, mainly before 4pm. Patchy blowing snow. Cloudy, with a steady temperature around 17. Wind chill values as low as zero. North northwest wind around 15 mph, with gusts as high as 30 mph. Chance of precipitation is 60%. Total daytime snow accumulation of less than a half inch possible. 

Tonight: A slight chance of snow before 8pm, then a chance of flurries between 8pm and 11pm. Patchy blowing snow before 8pm. Cloudy, with a low around -6. Wind chill values as low as -22. West wind 10 to 15 mph, with gusts as high as 30 mph. Chance of precipitation is 20%.

Tuesday: Light snow likely with intermittent snow showers after noon. Partly sunny and cold, with a temperature rising to near -3 by noon, then falling to around -7 during the remainder of the day. Wind chill values as low as -30. Blustery, with a west wind 15 to 20 mph, with gusts as high as 30 mph. Chance of precipitation is 60%. Little or no snow accumulation expected. 

Tuesday Night: A chance of flurries before midnight. Mostly cloudy, with a low around -26. Wind chill values as low as -50. West northwest wind around 15 mph, with gusts as high as 30 mph. 

Wednesday: Mostly sunny and cold, with a high near -15. West wind around 15 mph, with gusts as high as 25 mph. 

Wednesday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around -30.

Thursday: Mostly sunny and cold, with a high near -4.

Thursday Night: A chance of snow. Cloudy, with a low around -9.

There's never been -30 at a major reporting site in Illinois outside of the traditional big radiators like ARR. 

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Some public and private entities are beginning to announce they'll be closed Wednesday and Thursday. St. Joseph County, IN offices will be closed both days. The University of Notre Dame will be closed from Tuesday 6pm until Thursday afternoon. Public schools should start announcing closures tomorrow. My local tv station calling for a low of -24 on Thursday morning which would break the all-time record in South Bend. (side note: high of 48 next Monday lol)

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13 minutes ago, beavis1729 said:

FWIW, the 18z HRRR shows H85 temps of -36C over northern IL around 4z Wed, or 10 PM central time on Tuesday.

Here are the 18z HRRR temps, as far out as they go (6z Wed).  If this is anywhere close to correct, it's good news, as ORD and RFD won't have the dreaded midnight high when Tuesday turns to Wednesday.

sfct.conus.png

I think the midnight high danger is just about over.  Just thinking back on setups with arctic frontal passages, what is the typical model bias?  To not be quick enough with temperature drops behind the front, and I think we're going to see that happen in this case too.  I'm not saying go all in with the FV3, but I believe a lean toward the colder/quicker models is appropriate.

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DLH :wub:

Area Forecast Discussion
National Weather Service Duluth MN
251 PM CST Mon Jan 28 2019

.SHORT TERM...(This evening through Tuesday)
Issued at 251 PM CST Mon Jan 28 2019

The focus remains on the extremely cold and historic air that will
soon be moving into the Northland. This latest forecast has even
colder wind chills than earlier forecast. Confidence is high for
widespread dangerous wind chills. Wind Chill Warnings and
Advisories have now been issued.

An Arctic cold front will continue moving east through the
Northland this afternoon through this evening, bringing an influx
of extremely cold air out of Canada into the Northland into
tomorrow. This will be a rare situation in which a deep upper
level polar low will dive south into the Minnesota and Wisconsin
region by tomorrow morning. This airmass will feature 850 hpa
temperatures at least as cold as -40 degrees Celsius, with the
coldest air across western into southern Minnesota. Gusty winds
late tonight and Tuesday will cause widespread dangerous wind
chills of 30 to 55 below zero across the Northland, with the
coldest wind chills across central and northern Minnesota. Expect
northwest winds of 10 to 20 mph gusting 20 to 30 mph. There will
be little improvement of the winds and wind chills for the
afternoon.

The worst conditions will come Tuesday night through Wednesday
morning. Air temperatures will plummet to 20 to 40 below zero.
Northwest winds of 5 to 15 mph, and up to 20 mph along the
Minnesota North Shore, will cause jaw dropping wind chills of 45
to 65 below zero which will continue well into Wednesday morning.
These wind chills are on the order of an event that the Northland
typically only sees at least once every 5 to 10 years. The latest
comparable situations occurred in January 2014 and February 1996.
Frostbite can occur within 5 minutes under these conditions!

This overall forecast was by no means on the extreme side of model
guidance. The temperature and wind forecasts were close to a
consensus of available model guidance, especially the
temperatures. That means there were other models that were
significantly colder. It is possible we may need to forecast even
colder temperatures with subsequent forecasts. If this were the
case, the wind chills could be substantially, and incredibly,
colder.
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2 minutes ago, The_Doctor said:

About an inch or so, with bare spots. Grass is poking through.

You'd be a lock for -20s if there were more snow.  Even so, I still wouldn't rule it out given the snowpack not far upstream (which applies more to Wednesday morning with stronger low level flow from there) and such a ridiculous airmass aloft.  Also, LAF was a fairly good radiator, at least when I was there.  So basically I would say both mornings have a chance, but obviously the confidence is not what it is just to your north.

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3 hours ago, AppsRunner said:

The intern that would have to perform the flight disagrees ;)

U of Iowa has already cancelled classes Tuesday PM - Thursday. Wonder who will follow suit

Bradley in Peoria and Illinois State in Normal have done the same.

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25 minutes ago, snoblo said:

Bradley in Peoria and Illinois State in Normal have done the same.

Iowa State joins the list as well. I'm sure there's others in between that I haven't heard about, but having the two biggest schools in Iowa shut down for roughly 48 hours is pretty impressive. 

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The cold air is on the move south, Ennadai Lake which is in the territories north of the SK-MB border about 62 deg N, -38 with 30 mph north winds. This is roughly the slug of cold air coming down although I think the eventual end product is a blend of that air mass and some side drainage from the lobe in northern Ontario that has been sitting between -25 daytime and -50 nights recently. Bare ground may get a slight coverage as troughs move down behind the cold front, the bare ground may temporarily cause enhanced thermal gradients that will focus the light snowfalls. So although an inch of snow isn't ideal for radiational cooling, better than low albedo for daytime temperatures mainly. My guess is that a -40 reading is possible over some of the fresh snow in Wisconsin but I don't know which stations have the better cold air drainage setups, would say around AUW to RHI somewhere. 

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Very bold wording from DVN this afternoon, as you'd expect.  Point for here is down to -29 for Thursday morning.

Wednesday night...1035+ MB cold dense sfc ridge to slide in acrs the
area from the northwest. Sfc winds to continue to decrease under 10
MPH or even 5 MPH into the overnight. When combined with clear
skies, deep snow pack, and frigid start to the evening, many areas
to be colder Wed night than Tue night/Wed morning by at least a few
degrees. Although the secondary H85 MB pool of -28 to near -30C will
dump down acrs the GRT LKS and northeast of the region closer to the
upper level vortex center, still lingering cold enough values to
attain the fcst lows locally of 30 below or colder north of I80, mid
to upper 20s below along I80, and 15 to 20 below in the southern
third. Would not be surprised if some cold drainage locations north
of I80 reach 35 below ambient temps. Thus many record lows for Jan
31 in jeopardy of being broken soundly, including all time record
lows for some climate sites. Just brutal "pioneer days" cold of
dangerous values.  Even with the sfc winds dropping below 10 MPH,
still getting wind chills of 25 to over 45 below into early Thu
morning and the Wind chiLL headlines will continue through 18 Thu.
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26 minutes ago, cyclone77 said:

The new 00z HRRR would have a new state record for IL early Wed.  Has -37 at Galena at 11z.  Widespread lower -30s along and north of I-80.  :shiver:

Whether or not anything close to this verifies, can we take a moment to marvel at this kind of widespread cold on a 36 hr prog.  And to think that Wednesday night's progs will probably outdo this lol

HRRRFLT2_sfc_temp_036.png.f92dfa67977419cfdcb03524b0cca69f.png

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8 minutes ago, Hoosier said:

Whether or not anything close to this verifies, can we take a moment to marvel at this kind of widespread cold on a 36 hr prog.  And to think that Wednesday night's progs will probably outdo this lol

HRRRFLT2_sfc_temp_036.png.f92dfa67977419cfdcb03524b0cca69f.png

Yeah I'm actually starting to get sort of an uneasy feeling about this lol.  Really hope the house can handle this in regards to pipes etc.  Not very many people around here have engine block heaters like what they have up north, so there's going to be a lot of people with vehicle issues Wed-Thu.

Another thing to point out is the longevity of these extremes.  Usually if this area gets down to the mid -20s it's only for a few hours at most.  This will be a whole other ball game.  

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Here are a couple forecast soundings from the HRRR.  One is from near Galena and the other is ORD.  As you can see, the HRRR tries to establish a strong inversion at the surface near Galena, which is something that may be tough to pull off with the pressure gradient tomorrow night.  The ORD sounding does not have nearly as much of an inversion at the surface, but it does have a strong one above the surface.  

imo, the bigger temperature error potential would be at Galena, since a failure to have a strong surface based inversion would result in temps being way above what the HRRR suggests.  The ORD sounding could well be too cold, but the cold that the HRRR has there is not really due to a strong surface based inversion.

hrrr_2019012900_036_42.47--90_42.thumb.png.ba78d5ff5c4fc21f832110e1a0f66582.png

hrrr_2019012900_036_KORD.thumb.png.ed8c11813ab2dd1a40cf1b6a34747c52.png

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1 hour ago, cyclone77 said:

Yeah I'm actually starting to get sort of an uneasy feeling about this lol.  Really hope the house can handle this in regards to pipes etc.  Not very many people around here have engine block heaters like what they have up north, so there's going to be a lot of people with vehicle issues Wed-Thu.

Another thing to point out is the longevity of these extremes.  Usually if this area gets down to the mid -20s it's only for a few hours at most.  This will be a whole other ball game.  

I agree. We aren’t Siberia, and most of our construction is built to handle minor variations from normal climo. Houses are going to be creaking like crazy, and hopefully our furnaces can keep up. 

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DLH

.CLIMATE...
Issued at 251 PM CST Mon Jan 28 2019

Record lows are possible this week. Below are records and current
forecasts for select sites with a long history.

Record Lows for Tuesday January 29...

Duluth................-35 in 1951...Forecast...-21
International Falls...-41 in 1951...Forecast...-28
Brainerd..............-38 in 1965...Forecast...-25
Hibbing...............-34 in 1951...Forecast...-24
Ashland...............-35 in 1951...Forecast...-10

Record Lows for Wednesday January 30...

Duluth................-25 in 1994...Forecast...-29
International Falls...-40 in 1950...Forecast...-36
Brainerd..............-40 in 1996...Forecast...-37
Hibbing...............-33 in 1951...Forecast...-33
Ashland...............-35 in 1950...Forecast...-19

Record Lows for Wednesday January 31...

Duluth................-33 in 1982...Forecast...-32
International Falls...-35 in 1996...Forecast...-43
Brainerd..............-46 in 1996...Forecast...-40
Hibbing...............-41 in 1996...Forecast...-38
Ashland...............-33 in 1996...Forecast...-23
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