11/29/06 - 12/1/06 NOW: Plains/Great Lakes snowstorm

[Mike Hollingshead]

11/29 - 12/1 Plains/Great Lakes snowstorm

I thought I'd create something for just general jibber jabber about the current/coming storm. One can't just post whatever in the fcst threads so it'd be nice to have a place where anything can be said and the first thread is now outdated.

I'm pondering chasing this still but am not sure where I want to go and if I'll even be able to get there if I left in the morning. This ice storm might prevent me from heading out. I see KC is calling for up to 1 inch of ice there. A big mess could be about to unfold there. It's 28 there now and raining good by the looks of it. I see their radar just went down.

This could be used as a reports thread of sorts too maybe, since I know some get their panties in a wad when snow is brought up at all and I wouldn't dare think of having it in reports(hell I see no need for it even in there but it'd be nice to have a spot to just chat without worries).

 

[Dustin Wilcox]

Quite interesting to see an area be under a Winter Storm Warning and a Tornado watch at the same time sounds like something reserved for Nebraska. Travelling across areas of NC MO could almost become impossible if this moisture continues to surge north that is a lot of ICE. It appears this could become quite a serious ordeal for KC and areas just to the North and East if that much ICE falls along with the winds that should pick up I can imagine a major power outage problem could be begginging to unfold.

 

[Robert Dewey]

The one complaint I usually have is the flip-flopping forecast models... I propose that NCEP create a new model dubbed "UFM" - Ultimate Forecast Model. It will analyze data right down to the molecular structure and create a forecast that is 99.9% accurate out to 180 hours.

Mike - with the model trends, you might not have to go far... I wouldn't rule out the heaviest snow falling in MO and west central IA.

 

[Karen Politte]

Still trying to ascertain the winter WX risk for my area (central AR), it's a mixed bag and a difficult forecast. It looks to me like the cold air may arrive a little too late - and the precip a little too soon for anything significant around these parts. Even when the cold air does arrive - it's gonna be so shallow that we might get some grimey frzra and then that might be all-she-wrote. Even if it does snow - our ground temps are gonna be stratospheric from this recent warm and humid spell - so all in all I'm not holding my breath.

Thanks to H for starting this thread for all of our winter junk.

KL

 

[David Drummond]

I thought I'd create something for just general jibber jabber about the current/coming storm. One can't just post whatever in the fcst threads so it'd be nice to have a place where anything can be said and the first thread is now outdated.

This could be used as a reports thread of sorts too maybe, since I know some get their panties in a wad when snow is brought up at all and I wouldn't dare think of having it in reports(hell I see no need for it even in there but it'd be nice to have a spot to just chat without worries).

Whether some get their panties in a wad or not is invalidated by the fact that TimV mandated in the special rules for that area that significant snow event DISC and REPORT threads ARE in fact allowed.

(1) Purpose of Chase Forecasts and Chase Reports forums. These forums are intended to diffuse real-time information on weather events (thunderstorm or significant precip, e.g. snow) that are about to happen, are in progress, or have happened within the last 48 hours. If a weather event has occurred less than 48 hours ago, you can discuss it only in the Chase Forecasts or Chase Reports forum (unless it is primarily a non-precipitation event, in which case it may be posted in Weather & Chasing). Once 48 hours has passed, this restriction is waived, but we encourage using the available threads.

In that spirit, changing this thread to a DISC thread given the current date and moving it to that area.

Anyone with actual snow "chasing" reports be sure to put them in (or start) a REPORT thread for it.

 

[David Drummond]

Thread move complete.

 

[Danny Neal]

i guess we are lucky so far we are on the warm side........unofficial reports of over 4 inches of rain in downtown chicago with widespread 2 inch reportsall over the area.....10 :1 ratio thats a lot of snow hah! im still sitting here awaiting the passage of this front i want to be outside for the passage i think it would be pretty cool!

 

[David Drummond]

Ah I guess we aren't even in a Reports thread, but a Forecast/Now thread. I was thinking it'd be more of a discussion thread. It seems like a lot of work for nothing to do all this and then have to put "reporty" talk into a new report thread.

Not really Mike. Only thing that should go in the REPORTS thread would be first hand snow chasing reports. I can't image there being very many of those. Discussion and third party reporting goes into a DISC thread.

 

[Joel Wright]

Well, it's been raining here fairly heavily the last few hours. The temp's been slowling slipping down through the 30's. Now at 37° at my house. It was 61° early this morning when I went to work, so quite a change.

After about 3pm tomorrow I'll have a three day weekend, just in time to watch this storm roll on in. On the current track I'll be sitting right on the NW edge of it. The next few model runs will be interesting. I'll chime in tomorrow afternoon and night and let you guys know what's going on exactly here, as I'll be staying put. Hopefully I'll have something interesting to share, and maybe some pics...

 

[Jeff Snyder]

On my way back from a busted T TX chase, I drove through a couple strong thunderstorms (55-60dBz) between Purcell and Norman (I pulled off I35 for 10-15 minutes to let the storm come to me -- hey, I needed at least some interesting wx today). I will say this -- I have never experienced an event such as that, in that it's not often that very heavy convective precipitation falls when the surface temperature is 28-30F. This was a typical convective event, with very tight precip rate gradients (e.g. driving through extremely heavy precip one moment, and completely dry roads and no precip the next). At any rate, it made up for the bust in the warm sector. I suppose the cold FROPA that Phil H. and I experienced between Gainesville and Denton this afternoon was very cool too (40-50mph winds with a temperature drop of ~25F -- guessing -- over the course of less than a minute).

 

[Danny Neal]

this is really getting tricky, we are under a WSA until thursday afternoon and a WSW until friday, looks like the city may be divided with snow to the north and west and ice and sleet to the south and east......anywho.......man that front hit me like a sledgehammer i was outside in shorts for an hour doing stuff with my car and the next thing i know i hear a whooshing sound(i live by a ton of trees in a cemetary) and then the old air nailed me like slap in the face, icy winds probably 20 mph sent already dropping temps from 53 to 40 in 15 minutes......now the rain is falling kind of sounds like sleet on my window

 

[Joel Wright]

It's been raining here all evening at a steady moderate pace, with brief interludes of heavy rain. So far no sleet or freezing rain of any kind. The temp has slipped to 34° here at my house. Most of the heavier rain is about to end, just leaving spotty light precip in it's wake. It looks like by the time the freezing isotherm at the surface reaches us shortly, most of the precip will have passed on.

And soon the calm before what looks to be a BIG storm for us begins....

I will provide updates tomorrow evening and beyond from here as what looks to be the biggest snowstorm in ten years or more commences in our area.....

 

[Danny Neal]

http://www.hpc.ncep.noaa.gov/wwd/day1_psnow_gt_04.gif


http://www.hpc.ncep.noaa.gov/wwd/day2_psnow_gt_04.gif 4+

really interesting this current track will give the heart of chicago the brunt of the heavy snow

http://www.hpc.ncep.noaa.gov/wwd/day2_psnow_gt_08.gif 8+

http://www.hpc.ncep.noaa.gov/wwd/day2_psnow_gt_12.gif 12 +

right now just a cooooold rain

freezing rain outlook

http://www.hpc.ncep.noaa.gov/wwd/day2_pice_gt_25.gif

this is interesting, the people ive talked to over the summer said this could be a warmer than normal winter with the most interesting weather starting in december and if i do say so myself they are right on target!

ill get my chance for my thundersnow experiment tomorrow night into friday hehe

 

[Morgan Palmer]

Using our AWS weathernet stations, I have encountered an amazing temperature gradient at 1:50 AM CT.

The station in Lindale, in Smith County TX is at 47 degrees.

Both Moore Middle School and Chapel Hill School in Tyler are both at 67 degrees.

And as the crow fles, E.J. Moss and Moore schools are 13.8 miles apart.

That's 1.45 deg F per MILE!

MP

 

[rdale]

Today's a GREAT day to watch the dual-pol output over Oklahoma in realtime and monitor the precip type...

http://wdssii.nssl.noaa.gov/web/wdss2/products/radar/koun.shtml