1/24-1/25 Major Winter Storm - S. IL, IN, and OH

[IWXwx]

I measured 7.7" on .40" in Huntington and FWA had 8.7" on .53". Wasn't jackpot, but I'll take those totals anytime! (Well, at least until March 15th.)

[michsnowfreak]

1 hour ago, SolidIcewx said:

Happy to see there was a nice spread the wealth event up there. Down where i am now people are freaking out a out prolonged 20’s lol.

Wait what did I miss? You aren't in MI anymore?

[Stebo]

4.8" at home 4.9" here at Metro. Not the biggest storm but not bad and this storm had a decent amount of liquid so it won't just melt or sublimate away quickly.

[michsnowfreak]

1 hour ago, Stevo6899 said:

Ahh so you're the big dog repellent. Kidding. Im sorry you had to move. Not a better place to be in the summer though. Me and Josh go back and forth about this every winter. He likes the nickel diming shit and snowcover. Im okay with 3 snowless winters in a row a decade if it means a big dog every other yr for a good stretch. Boston has had atleast 10 20+ storms since 2000. Detroits had 100+ 1-3 events. I know its not in our climo to get big dogs but when you see everyone else getting one, it's annoying lol.

Also I see our friends in ohio/Indiana did well but not nearly close to some of the kuchera maps we were seeing that I thought would verify with the arctic air in place. Perhaps too much dry air or ratios weren't as good as we thought due to it being too cold. 

Boston has bot had 10 but they've had several 20+ since 2000. More than here lol. And "everyone else" doesn't get big dogs outside the east coast. For comparison Daytons 12.4" with this storm was their all time 24 hr ecord. Detroit saw 16.7" on Feb 1/2, 2015. We got plenty of 10-12" storms in the golden era of the 2000s-10s with several areas hitting 14-16" in some storms. Don't be lowering your big dog standards just because OH/IN got more this time lol. We don't have the ocean. Thats not gonna change. 

And why sorry he had to move? Maybe he likes more frequent snowfall? Or even more so maybe he likes where he lives and didnt base on weather. From one 4 seasons climate to another is really not a huge move. Its these people that move to AZ to get burned alive that make me scratch my head. 

It wasnt so much dry air with this storm, it was strictly ratios. A red flag should've been how much of the mid Atlantic and east coast turned to sleet with temps in the teens. Just because its cold doesn't mean 20-1 ratios. Im not sticking up for the models as they've been awful recently, but it was actually a well forecast storm qpf wise and placement wise. Remember, Kutchera is not a model forecast, its an algorithm incorporated into the models to estimate snowfall and it has disappointment millions of weenie hearts over the years.

[michsnowfreak]

11 minutes ago, Stebo said:

4.8" at home 4.9" here at Metro. Not the biggest storm but not bad and this storm had a decent amount of liquid so it won't just melt or sublimate away quickly.

Exactly. Plus the existing snowpack was already well compacted and drifted over. None of this watching it settle by inches daily as you do with fluffy snow. Theres about 1 inch of water in our 9" powder snowpack. Its a skier or snowboarders dream base.

[dmc76]

1 hour ago, Stevo6899 said:

Ahh so you're the big dog repellent. Kidding. Im sorry you had to move. Not a better place to be in the summer though. Me and Josh go back and forth about this every winter. He likes the nickel diming shit and snowcover. Im okay with 3 snowless winters in a row a decade if it means a big dog every other yr for a good stretch. Boston has had atleast 10 20+ storms since 2000. Detroits had 100+ 1-3 events. I know its not in our climo to get big dogs but when you see everyone else getting one, it's annoying lol.

Also I see our friends in ohio/Indiana did well but not nearly close to some of the kuchera maps we were seeing that I thought would verify with the arctic air in place. Perhaps too much dry air or ratios weren't as good as we thought due to it being too cold. 

It’s not just a Detroit thing I mean, you don’t even hear about Grand Rapids (of course they get the 1-2 punch) or Lansing or Saginaw anybody getting 20 inches of snow out of a snowstorm in Michigan it’s just not a thing here. I just know or few spots.  PHN got 21 inches during the Dec 2000 storm. 

[Stebo]

20 minutes ago, dmc76 said:

It’s not just a Detroit thing I mean, you don’t even hear about Grand Rapids (of course they get the 1-2 punch) or Lansing or Saginaw anybody getting 20 inches of snow out of a snowstorm in Michigan it’s just not a thing here. I just know or few spots.  PHN got 21 inches during the Dec 2000 storm. 

Is there an expectation of a 20" storm here? There has only been 1 since 1880 and it was in 1886. 1 in Flint in 67 and 2 in Saginaw in 67 and 78. This isn't a location that even remotely sniffs 20" storms ever. Boston does because they have the luxury of the ocean and Nor'easters. This isn't a reservation on you just on the discussion in general. I don't know why the same people bring this up seemingly every year and multiple times a year. It is like they never read climo for the region.

[dmc76]

27 minutes ago, Stebo said:

Is there an expectation of a 20" storm here? There has only been 1 since 1880 and it was in 1886. 1 in Flint in 67 and 2 in Saginaw in 67 and 78. This isn't a location that even remotely sniffs 20" storms ever. Boston does because they have the luxury of the ocean and Nor'easters. This isn't a reservation on you just on the discussion in general. I don't know why the same people bring this up seemingly every year and multiple times a year. It is like they never read climo for the region.

Theres definitely is an expectations of getting 20 inches or more with some of these weenies.  Every single year we go and have the same conversation. It’s likely not happening ever in our lifetime. 

[dmc76]

1 hour ago, michsnowfreak said:

Boston has bot had 10 but they've had several 20+ since 2000. More than here lol. And "everyone else" doesn't get big dogs outside the east coast. For comparison Daytons 12.4" with this storm was their all time 24 hr ecord. Detroit saw 16.7" on Feb 1/2, 2015. We got plenty of 10-12" storms in the golden era of the 2000s-10s with several areas hitting 14-16" in some storms. Don't be lowering your big dog standards just because OH/IN got more this time lol. We don't have the ocean. Thats not gonna change. 

And why sorry he had to move? Maybe he likes more frequent snowfall? Or even more so maybe he likes where he lives and didnt base on weather. From one 4 seasons climate to another is really not a huge move. Its these people that move to AZ to get burned alive that make me scratch my head. 

It wasnt so much dry air with this storm, it was strictly ratios. A red flag should've been how much of the mid Atlantic and east coast turned to sleet with temps in the teens. Just because its cold doesn't mean 20-1 ratios. Im not sticking up for the models as they've been awful recently, but it was actually a well forecast storm qpf wise and placement wise. Remember, Kutchera is not a model forecast, its an algorithm incorporated into the models to estimate snowfall and it has disappointment millions of weenie hearts over the years.

I’m pretty sure Dayton has had several storms of near 18 inches or above it

[sbnwx85]

Hit the daily double last night with lake effect and added another 3.4”. 6.8” storm total. 11” snow depth. It’s the fourth time this winter we’ve had double-digit snow depth. #blessed

[michsnowfreak]

3 hours ago, Stebo said:

Is there an expectation of a 20" storm here? There has only been 1 since 1880 and it was in 1886. 1 in Flint in 67 and 2 in Saginaw in 67 and 78. This isn't a location that even remotely sniffs 20" storms ever. Boston does because they have the luxury of the ocean and Nor'easters. This isn't a reservation on you just on the discussion in general. I don't know why the same people bring this up seemingly every year and multiple times a year. It is like they never read climo for the region.

Its honestly unreal. Its one thing to want something. I want a million dollars, I want to lose weight, etc. But its another to have an expectation that's totally against to your climate. Its almost beyond comprehension to me that a "big dog" is a winter event, and some would supposedly be fine going years without winter knowing that one year soon theyre bound to get that big dog. We dont/can't that in Michigan. We need winter annually. Its like telling your boss, no thank you i don't want my biweekly paycheck. Ill just wait til next year when we get the big profit sharing bonus. 

[michsnowfreak]

2 hours ago, dmc76 said:

I’m pretty sure Dayton has had several storms of near 18 inches or above it

This is why I don't like quoting stats i verify them. The 12.4 was daytons CALENDAR day record. They had 1 storm of 18+ (18.3 in 1910)

[buckeye]

3 minutes ago, michsnowfreak said:

This is why I don't like quoting stats i verify them. The 12.4 was daytons CALENDAR day record. They had 1 storm of 18+ (18.3 in 1910)

hmmm, I could have sworn that the Dec 04 storm blasted them with more than that.  I know there were some locations in se IN and along the OH/IN border that got like 30"

[michsnowfreak]

Day after the storm is always fun, but especially when its full of arctic air. Deep winter. 

[buckeye]

This is the one I was thinking of, I guess Dayton was in 12-28"   I know years ago I saw a map for this storm that had some 30" + lollipops in that 2'+ area

[buckeye]

3 hours ago, sbnwx85 said:

Hit the daily double last night with lake effect and added another 3.4”. 6.8” storm total. 11” snow depth. It’s the fourth time this winter we’ve had double-digit snow depth. #blessed

 

here's my snow dog pics.   Folks left for Hawaii a day before the storm hit.   We are watching their little dogs.  Needless to say they are not fans of cold and snow, especially when the snow is as tall as they are....  dug a pee/poop pit for them off the side porch.   Works out nice  since I don't have to put them on a leash and they can't go anywhere, plus they don't want to be out more than a few minutes with the cold.

[Roger Smith]

May have been two calendar days like an overnight storm? Toronto has never had a 20" calendar day storm (I have not had time to check the latest on yesterday) but it has three or four overnight 20 to 23 inch storm totals. 

I recall doing a study on all 8.0" two day totals for Toronto (hundreds of data points) and about half of them had a significant amount on a second consecutive day. So only about half of all snowstorms there manage to occur all within one calendar day, or mostly if we eliminate the 0.1 and 0.2 add-ons. A few storms require three calendar days to play out to their totals but I never did a census on those because in a fast-moving pattern there can easily be two separate events contained in three days of snowfall data. 

[Roger Smith]

13 hours ago, Torchageddon said:

What station was the 19.5" record in '44 from? The MSN using YYZ and touting the record snowiest day from that but sounds like they smudged the narrative.

 

Toronto City as it is now known used to be a first-order station from its founding in 1840 through to about the 1980s, it gradually became more of a well-maintained climate station but the data have been reported more or less daily all along and I took it upon myself to maintain the data base even though Environment Canada nowadays seem to ignore that data base and only give out press releases about YYZ (Toronto airport, located about 12 miles west of downtown Toronto) where the period of record is 1938 to present. So there are a lot of very significant climate records like the 1936 heat wave that aren't in the YYZ data base. 

Toronto City has always been located somewhere within 0.5 miles of its longest situated location at the old headquarters building of the former Dominion of Canada weather service at 315 Bloor Street West. This building, next to Varsity Stadium, is now part of the U of T campus. Before 1908 the observations were made about 0.5 miles southeast of there near what is now Hart House and was then Kings College, basically a block west of Queens Park (the Ontario legislature building). Some time around 2003 they stopped making observations at the old h.q. building (which had been replaced by a much larger modern version in suburban Toronto), and moved the instruments to a suitable well-exposed location near Trinity College on the university campus. I assume it is read once daily around 0800h and also the instruments seem to be capable of sending some data hourly because the station reports are hourly as well as daily even nowadays. There was a problem with missing data, I worked through all missing data cases and found that 90% of them could easily be estimated from the hourly observations because those "missing" days were only missing an hour or two and not usually ones critical for estimating max and min temps. Whether by luck or design, almost all the missing days (I would say maybe a total of 50 from 2003 to 2025) are evidently dry days from regional zero reports. 

I also found that 2020 rainfall data had been compromised to some extent by daily small values that appeared to be the result of lawn sprinkler water getting into rain gauges (Toronto City was showing rain almost every day for several months when other stations were dry). So it's a bit of a challenge to maintain this data base but I have done it best as I can -- as they close in on 200 years of data, I feel they should duplicate my work (I know from experience they won't accept anything I say as in Canada I am basically a non-person) and bring the records back from the dead. Up until around 1980 there was a fully maintained data base with daily records etc. So I have basically extended that to the present day.  

I was going off memory quoting some of the all-time records, now that I have my file open I can be more precise. The existing one-day records and top ten calendar day amounts (any before 1978 were originally recorded in inches and those after 1978 have been converted from metric) for Toronto City are 

1. 19.0" Dec 11 1944

t2. 18.0" Feb  14, 1850, Feb 22, 1846

t4. 16.0" Feb 5, 1863 and Mar 27, 1870

6. 15.7" Jan 23 1966

t8. 15.0" Jan 20 1867 and Mar 21, 1867 and Dec 25 1872, Dec 29 1855

12. 14.9" Jan 2 1999 (38.0 cm)

Two-day record values (probably overnight storms) are

23.0" Dec 25-26 1872 (15.0 + 8.0)

22.5" Dec 11-12 1944 (19.0 + 3.5)

22.0" Feb 22-23 1846 (18.0 + 4.0)

20.0" Mar 15-16 1870 (10.0 + 10.0)

19.5" Jan 23-24 1873 (14.3 + 5.2).

18.0" Jan 20-21 1867, 16.6" 

18.0" Feb 5-6 1863 (16.0 + 2.0) and also 24-25 1868 (12.0 + 6.0)

(18.0" Feb 1850 daily value was not increased by any amounts either side)

16.6" Jan 22-23 1966

16.5" Mar 21-22 1867

15.5" Mar 8-9 1931 (12.5 + 3.0) also Mar 20-21 1876 (9.0 + 6.5)

_______________________

The Nov 2d record is 12.5" from Nov 24-25 1950 and the April record is 9.4" from Apr 2-3 1975. 

As you can see almost all the top ten snowstorms were before YYZ data began. The average snowfall in 19th century winters was about 25% greater than any 30-year averages in the 20th century. 1869-1870 was the snowiest winter back in that era. 

[Torchageddon]

20 minutes ago, Roger Smith said:

Toronto City as it is now known used to be a first-order station from its founding in 1840 through to about the 1980s, it gradually became more of a well-maintained climate station but the data have been reported more or less daily all along and I took it upon myself to maintain the data base even though Environment Canada nowadays seem to ignore that data base and only give out press releases about YYZ (Toronto airport, located about 12 miles west of downtown Toronto) where the period of record is 1938 to present. So there are a lot of very significant climate records like the 1936 heat wave that aren't in the YYZ data base. 

...

Thank you for all the details, much appreciated!

[Snowstorms]

9 hours ago, michsnowfreak said:

I forgot youre in TX .

This winter is certainly what the old timers would call "an old fashioned winter" but really need to see one of those ORD-DTW-YYZ storms to ice the cake. 

Hopefully you can move back to Toronto or at least the north someday!

The 5.2" storm total brings me to 34.0" on the season and the 4.9" at DTW brings them to 33.1", which is 11" above avg to date. We are now exactly at the climo midpoint of the snow season. 

At least it looks like winter out here in TX after the 3" sleet storm. But were practically shutdown. It was 5 last night and 12 tonight. 

I agree and its been a while since we've seen two back to back cold winters in the east. 

That's great. You're performing better than the last couple of seasons so far. Hopefully February and March deliver. How much for December and January, respectively?