WINTER STORM FCST 12/07/07-12/12/07: KS, MO, IA, IL, MN, WI, NE, MI

[Joel Wright]

Hey Mike H, St. Joseph may be a good spot, but even there it may rise above freezing for a time tomorrow morning. I'm sure they'll still get a lot of ice though. If I were you I would consider maybe staying in Mound City along I-29. They should be just far enough north to stay locked into the subfreezing temps for the whole storm. Ideally, between Mound City and St. Joe would be the best spot in my opinion, but obviously the hotels would be sparce in that area I'd imagine. I think St. Joe or Mound City would be a great place to set up though. You should have easy access to the best ice band in either of those two locations...

 

[Chad Cowan]

END OF THE WORLD:

 

[Michael O'Keeffe]

You guys are looking mostly at the night aspect of the storm. Once the sun rises that heavy band will move south of an Atchinson to Macon line including the KC metro area dumping an additional 1/4-1/2" of ice for areas brining the total ice storm totals to over an inch possibly for areas along the I70 corridor.

So with that 1/4"-1/2" overnight tacked on to the additional 1/4"-1/2" during the day we could still see the blow while areas north of Atchinson to Macon line including St. Joe will see maybe a 1/10 of an inch of ice, but a 1/2" of sleet. So with that said I still think KC will need to take extreme precaution because though we may not get the worst during the morning commute the rush hour drive home could be VERY treacherous.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[Joel Wright]

18z models look even wetter to me. 1.5" accumulations (no joke) are not out of the question for the people hit the hardest. It looks like moderate to heavy supercooled rain will almost train over the same areas for 12hrs or more later tonight. Still looks like Salina through St Joseph (or a hair north of there) to Lamoni, to near the QC, and on towards NIU/Dekalb.

The GFS surface 0° looks nearly the same as previous runs. Maybe just a HAIR further south than this mornings cycle. Really doesn't look like sleet will factor in across the heavy band of ice, as this area will have a rather thick layer of relatively warm air above the VERY shallow, but cold arctic airmass. Yee haw! Here we go...

 

[Rhyuan Janssen]

My local forecast has up to .5 of ice and then up to 5 inches of sleet!! That would be incredible! I still think some changes will occur with morning package if the trends continue to do this north shift thing.

 

[Charles Kuster]

Lincoln won't see as much ice as locations further to our south, but we are still under a winter storm warning. We should see freezing rain tonight which should transition over to sleet and snow during the early morning hours. Both the NAM and RUC have the 850mb freezing line passing us between 12:00am CST and 6:00am CST (probably around 2-5am). However, we could see a decent amount of ice before this occurs. NWS has increased our ice accumulations from .2"-.4" to .3"-.5" and locations just to our south are forecasted to potentially receive more than .5" of ice. Precip is increasing over KS and spreading to the north quickly, so our precip could begin within several hours. Stay safe everyone.

 

[George Limpert]

The temperature is creeping up in Columbia. The RUC seems a little warm compared to surface observations, but seems to have a better handle on temperatures than the latest GFS. For the next few hours, the RUC keeps temperature advections at the surface rather weak over central Missouri. I'm not expecting the temperature to go above freezing in Columbia until possibly 2 or 3 AM. The 21Z RUC would take it above freezing around midnight, but that run of the RUC seems to be a degree or two too warm at the surface. The winds do become southeasterly this evening in response to pressure falls to the west. Radar trends over west central Missouri show echoes developing aloft. I think we'll see a lot of cold rain and possibly some thunder in Columbia tomorrow morning.

 

[Tyler_Costantini]

We lost power Sat 12-9 ~4am cst restored to my home in Pittsburg, KS @ ~ 5:30pm cst last night Wed 12-12. We kept the house warm enough to live in with a 5kw generator I only ran it every 4 -5 hours or so I only had 15gal of gas and with the amount of damage i wasn't sure when we would have power restored. We lost large limbs and one tree in out yard. According to NWS Springfield we received 1.5" + honestly in not sure how to properly measure ice.

Anyway I wanted to post a report and let everyone we made it through ok.
I hope everyone made it through the storm safely.
here is a link some of the pictures it took in and around Pittsburg, KS
http://www.tornadonerds.com/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=17638