December 28th - 29th Blizzard

[Torchageddon]

Got down to 985mb here although that might be my wx station tripping as it hasn't budged from 987 for 5+ hr. Woke up to loud winds, snow started at 7:40 and every min got worse as the intense LES is starting to smother all of the Huron shoreline! I'm already getting some blowing snow after the glacier with nada 45 mins ago. SN+, hope to see Blizz conditions at some point. Oddly the winds aren't as strong as 5am..yet. My dendrites are also choice so I believe in the 8" forecast.

[OrdIowPitMsp]

MSP recorded 5.8” of snow yesterday. Not sure how much if any was recorded after midnight to add to the final total. Roads are a sheet of ice this morning.

 

[Baum]

Crappy way to run a Holiday torch.

[Chicago WX]

Herscher CoCoRaHS pretty much sums it up in their note this morning. They're a terrible snow measurer based off past history, but this location is pretty rural and they were reporting 1/16 visibility around 7:45 am. Probably could have used a WWA considering conditions were deplorable this morning. It doesn't take much snow with these winds. I have 6"+ drifts in my backyard. Still snowing here and a bit breezy...

Swapped gauges at 5:10 pm, had 0.84 inch of rain at that time. Now just a trace of snow in gauge but probably not representative due to high winds gusting 38-49 MPH (33-43 KT) all night, gusting 41 MPH (36 KT) currently at KIKK AWOS. I would guess about 2 inches of new snow/snowpack depth with lots of drifting and blowing. Visibility 291347Z 1/16SM SN BLSN  

[michsnowfreak]

6 hours ago, mimillman said:

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

Nice! Im staying in Newberry Feb 18-21 but will be going to different areas.

[michsnowfreak]

14 hours ago, michsnowfreak said:

DTW was 43 at 6pm and 57 at 7pm

DTW peaked at 61F at 9pm. Temp fell from 59F at midnight to 23F at 8am. Wind chills are currently around 0F with snow squalls approaching.

[Chinook]

snow squall warnings near Detroit

[hawkeye_wx]

My gauge collected 0.10" of melted snow, but I was only able to measure about 0.8" of snow in the grass.

[SouthOaklandCtyWX]

Coming down pretty good in Royal Oak, ground has whitened up in the last 20 minutes. 

[Chinook]

Toledo had a high 61 (low 33 yesterday morning) with various levels of rain, and heavy fog. No lightning/thunder later in the evening. Then with the temperature dropping, Toledo has maxed out at 50 knot (58mph) peak winds. Wind chill was briefly 0 when the temp was 18 and the wind was 30mph. 0.52", and also measured values up to 0.60" and 0.70" on CoCoRAHS. A few days back, the WPC/NWS estimation was 1.6" but a lot of that shifted to Detroit. (Oakland County got that much)

[Brian D]

1.0" of snow IMBY with winds up to 40 mph last night. They're kicking back up this morning to 35 mph. Around my area just 1-2" of snow. Nice hit from S MN into the UP MI. 

[mnchaserguy]

People reporting 6-7” nearby. Hard to know exactly with all the blowing and drifting. Didn’t quite live up to the hype but still a decent storm.


.

[michsnowfreak]

Snowin and blowing away. Winter quickly has returned. 

[Snowstorms]

Came back to Toronto for the holidays. We got 4" back on the 26th, so close enough for a white christmas  YYZ at 23.1" for the season. 

Cold and windy today with on and off snow squalls. Had some melting with the rain last night, but still got a decent 2-3" of cement on the ground. 

Merry Christmas everyone! 

[RogueWaves]

8 hours ago, Baum said:

Ground is white again.

Who cares?

[sbnwx85]

About 5" on the ground at work. I'm going to bet there's 3-4" at home, further away from the lake.

[OrdIowPitMsp]

[cyclone77]

Felt like living in lower Michigan today with mood flakes from sunup to sundown.  Don't see that very often around here.  

[RogueWaves]

More than mood flakes here today. Heaviest squall had visibility <500 feet at its height. So windy by the lake here plus the ice coating everything that not much snow was added on the level. There is however a newly formed drift out back I measured at 21". Yard decorations suffered wind damage but we did keep power. A few impressive gusts and even still getting some now occasionally. Police and fire dept's were non-stop figured wx related.

[roardog]

19 minutes ago, RogueWaves said:

More than mood flakes here today. Heaviest squall had visibility <500 feet at its height. So windy by the lake here plus the ice coating everything that not much snow was added on the level. There is however a newly formed drift out back I measured at 21". Yard decorations suffered wind damage but we did keep power. A few impressive gusts and even still getting some now occasionally. Police and fire dept's were non-stop figured wx related.

I feel like living where you do would actually be frustrating if you like snow. Clare county is so close but yet so far away from consistent heavy LES from Lake Michigan. I have no chance over here to get heavy snow from Lake Michigan but at least I can from Lake Huron even if it’s hard to get a north or northeast flow with favorable conditions. 

[cutlew]

I wonder how they make that map, looks like it cut down from reports including the official sites by about an inch or 2 across the board. I’m guessing the real numbers are somewhere in between with the drifts

[OrdIowPitMsp]

1 hour ago, cutlew said:

 

I wonder how they make that map, looks like it cut down from reports including the official sites by about an inch or 2 across the board. I’m guessing the real numbers are somewhere in between with the drifts

 

Good question I’m not entirely sure how they are made, combination of radar estimate and ground reports possibly. There were plenty of 6-7” reports around the metro that this map doesn’t reflect. 

[sbnwx85]

I figured I’d be nice and shovel the neighbor’s sidewalk tonight since she sometimes snowblows mine. I only had an inch or two across my sidewalk… so no big deal, right?

It turns out all my snow collected on her sidewalk — about 8” deep. That’s what I get for being nice. 

[OrdIowPitMsp]

Updated map @cutlew

[Stevo6899]

14 hours ago, cyclone77 said:

Felt like living in lower Michigan today with mood flakes from sunup to sundown.  Don't see that very often around here.  

If it amounted to like an inch and just enough to f up the roads, yup lower mich detroit

[Jackstraw]

Got a 1/2in from French Ticklers off of the lake down here. Moderate wind damage reports around the area, that was the bigger story along with the temp bottom falling out. 15 gusts over 50 at my station with a 10 min 38+ sustained period. Left Fl to get Tropical Storm force winds up here lol.

[michsnowfreak]

Definitely can't say the storm was boring here. 0.77" of rain. Temps shot up to 60 with dewpoint of 59 (dtw 61/59) late sunday evening, then crashed to the low 20s with wind chills near 0 by sunrise Monday. Snow squalls and nonstop blowing snow all day yesterday, gusts 45-55mph, snowfall amounted to 1.8" here.

So snow had been on the ground continuously from November 29 to December 20, melted 5 days before Christmas, and white ground returned 3 days after. Can't make it up.

[Frog Town]

1 hour ago, michsnowfreak said:

Definitely can't say the storm was boring here. 0.77" of rain. Temps shot up to 60 with dewpoint of 59 (dtw 61/59) late sunday evening, then crashed to the low 20s with wind chills near 0 by sunrise Monday. Snow squalls and nonstop blowing snow all day yesterday, gusts 45-55mph, snowfall amounted to 1.8" here.

So snow had been on the ground continuously from November 29 to December 20, melted 5 days before Christmas, and white ground returned 3 days after. Can't make it up.

 I think there’s some wisdom in this. Kids growing up in today’s climate will, 20+ years from now, look back with snowy nostalgia on winters that followed this general pattern across much of the region. We bring this up often, and this is a good example of how fickle our memories can be when it comes to how things actually unfolded in the past.