December 28th - 29th Blizzard

[michsnowfreak]

I would kill to be by Lake Superior in the UP for this one. What an incredible blizzard it will be. Heading up there in mid Feb so at least a good base is being laid!

[OrdIowPitMsp]

MSP reporting 2” at noon. Temps falling fast now with the next wave moving in. 

[cyclone77]

MSP radar doesn't look too good to me.  Hope it fills in and enhances in short order.

[mnchaserguy]

Winds picking up quick. Should continue to increase from here over the next few hours.


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[mnchaserguy]

MSP radar doesn't look too good to me.  Hope it fills in and enhances in short order.

It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out. It’s snowing pretty hard despite what the radar is showing. Models always showed a less intense but consistent and prolonged moderate snowband pivoting over central Minnesota which is where the majority of our accumulation is supposed to come from. The initial heavy band was never supposed to last long or add up to much. Radar looks about what I would expect.


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[Brian D]

Snow finally filled in along the shore. Starting to accum now.  

[Chinook]

a few radars from MN/IA

 

 

 

 

 

[RogueWaves]

DTX

Frontal passage around or just after midnight, as deepening surface
low tracks into Lake Huron tonight. Strong high res model consensus
(RAP/3k NAM/ARW/ARW2/HRRR/Euro) with the low deepening to around 975
MB by Monday morning near Georgian Bay. With at least 55-60 knots of
flow at the 850 MB level, confidence is high in occasional wind
gusts of 45-55 MPH throughout Monday, with a surface trough passage
around mid day also likely providing a focus. Steepening low level
lapse rates and inversion heights aoa 7 kft, along with much of the
cloud depth/minimal cape in the dgz will be conducive to snow
showers/squalls, and isolated wind gusts to 60 MPH seem likely in the
convective rolls. With the soaked ground from today`s rainfall,
weakened tree limbs from the ice storm, and long duration of strong
wind gusts tonight through early tomorrow evening, have elected to go
with high wind warning for all of southeast Michigan. Expecting to
see a significant number of power outages. 6z Euro ensemble meteograms
indicating close to the half members supporting 55-60 MPH peak wind
gusts as well.

The strong winds and snow squalls will make for tough travel
conditions on Monday, despite just an inch or two of snow
accumulation as 700 MB cold pool (-20 C)/trough axis tracks through.
Any leftover standing water will also freeze for the Monday morning
commute as temps fall into the upper 20s.

[A-L-E-K]

Jelly

[OrdIowPitMsp]

Good day to stare out the window 

[hawkeye_wx]

The Cedar Rapids airport gusted to 63 mph.

[RogueWaves]

Transformer arcing with power on/off here. More ice to the point sturdy bush limbs way lower to the ground.

APX

I sure hope we can lose the ice before this

[Geoboy645]

MKX mentioned a potential upgrade to Blizzard warnings for the northern CWA if some of the higher end winds come to fruition in their afternoon AFD. Even without that, wind gusts up to 60 mentioned which iirc would be our strongest synoptic wind event since 12/15/21. So that's fun I guess.

[michsnowfreak]

DTW was 43 at 6pm and 57 at 7pm

[RogueWaves]

17 minutes ago, michsnowfreak said:

DTW was 43 at 6pm and 57 at 7pm

Bomb fuel:

[OrdIowPitMsp]

4.1” @ 6pm 

10F

Better returns are setting up SW of the metro, so totals will likely end up higher down that way. 

Should have light/moderate snow for another 5-6 hours. 

[mnchaserguy]

4.1” @ 6pm 
10F
Better returns are setting up SW of the metro, so totals will likely end up higher down that way. 

Should have light/moderate snow for another 5-6 hours. 

Yeah looks like we will be lucky to get to 5-6” at this rate.


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[OrdIowPitMsp]

6 minutes ago, mnchaserguy said:

Yeah looks like we will be lucky to get to 5-6” at this rate.


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I think 6” attainable here, and a nice score given this kind of popped up in the last 48 hours  

[cutlew]

Agreed, we were about to go into the depths of winter with a few inches of old glacier and no snow prospects. Today (plus a couple weak clippers this week?) will make everything pretty again. And it will help the ski trails.

Noticed the 4 inches is on half an inch of precipitation, even if a little of that was early morning rain not the most efficient snow with it being warm early then windy later


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[cutlew]

Seems like the blizzard panned out too. I-35 has been closed for hours in southern MN.

[Roger Smith]

Lake effect blizzard conditions will develop rapidly across lower MI tonight and SW Ontario by morning. Heavy snow squalls with winds gusting to 55-60 mph will quickly make many highways impassable, unprepared drivers are going to be stranded in dangerous situations. I am not sure how much awareness has been created by public forecasts of these rapidly oncoming changes. Given the way the low is deepening and severe cold phasing into the circulation, and still fairly warm temps Lakes Michigan and Huron, potential for emergency situations is high. This will spread to parts of central ON, nwPA and wNY by late morning and upstate NY by afternoon-evening. 

Goderich to London ON needs a max alert as NW winds funnel mega-squall conditions directly across the London region. My guess is 401 will be closed or at least impassable from Chatham to Woodstock by 0900h. 

[cyclone77]

Power just flickered here as winds are pushing 55mph.  Flurries are flying as the wraparound action has arrived.  May get a DAB to DAB+ by morning.

EDIT: DVN recently gusted to 60mph.

[OHweather]

The period of snow showers/squalls along the trough axis that will swing southeast across lower MI/far northeast IN and northern OH during the day Monday will be accompanied by some impressive conditions...the temperatures will be cold enough for the relatively shallow snow showers to produce good dendrites, and winds will be gusting 45-55 MPH. The low levels will be unstable enough for the snow showers to have some convective component, so they'll be squally. The snow/blowing snow combination will be impressive for a 1-3 hour period. I'm guessing some snow squall warnings are a possibility. 

[RCNYILWX]

It's legit out there underneath the narrow heavier band. On my drive home from my crazy shift dealing with 2 seasons, conditions got worse going from Bolingbrook into Naperville. Even prior to that, with the strong cross winds, especially on intersections with Weber Road, conditions were sub optimal due to blowing snow. Actually getting dendrites here under the band despite the strong winds, and a solid coating down.

I'm glad I put part of the CWA in a WWA but wish I went farther south with it. Hopefully a lot less people need to drive to their offices tomorrow with it still being the holidays.

Sent from my SM-S936U using Tapatalk

[mimillman]

14 hours ago, michsnowfreak said:

I would kill to be by Lake Superior in the UP for this one. What an incredible blizzard it will be. Heading up there in mid Feb so at least a good base is being laid!

I’ll be up there in mid Feb for snowmobiling as well 

[sbnwx85]

We already have an inch down IMBY. I opened the door to let the dogs out back and the cold, snow and wind is like slap in the mouth… especially compared to 64 degrees yesterday. Forecast was upped to 3-7” overnight. Wouldn’t be surprised if we get upgraded to a warning if the lake effect continues today.

[Baum]

Ground is white again.

[Chicago WX]

Legit nasty conditions this morning. A little surprised with the good dendrites with the high winds, but we have been in the good reflectivities. Tough measure though with it blowing around. Some spots have 2", others have 0.5", and so on and so forth. We'll call it an inch I guess. Regardless, everything covered up again and winter has come back for a bit.

[cyclone77]

Picked up a few tenths here.  That wind last night was wicked.  

[sbnwx85]

Ripping now. Dendrites are surprisingly good here too. Stacking nicely.