Trying to hit a few key issues today. First, the potential for accumulating snow in the Mid-Atlantic over the weekend. It’s snowed, sleeted, thundered, etc. across much of the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast in the last 36 hours…why not add something else to the mix?
Map to the left is the NAM model depiction of snowfall for the next 72 hours. It shows you snow stretching from Omaha to Kansas City to St. Louis to Louisville to Cincinnati to just south of Washington, DC. This has been shown off and on throughout the week on all the models. It looks like we’re game on for a snow event. The problem is (of course) the exact storm track. The GFS forecast is *slightly* further north, which would bring more snow into DC and much less around Richmond. I would side in between the two right now…with light snows south of Baltimore to south of Richmond, with an axis of heavier snow, probably in the middle, through, say Fredricksburg, VA. Could be a decent event for the northern part of the Blue Ridge. This will not be a *major* event, but given that it’s almost April, every snow event is extra painful.
So if you have weekend plans, specifically Sunday, keep this in mind. It is the time of year where it’s tougher to get snow to stick on the roads, but given that we’re leading into this event with several cold days, we could see more sticking than we normally would in late March.
In other news, spring may be delayed somewhat in the East. Just got a look at the latest weekly forecast from the European model…and, yeah, it looks cold if you live anywhere north of about Florida. Not guaranteed to verify, but this is certainly not what you want to see if you live in the Northeast, Plains, Great Lakes, or Mid-Atlantic.
However, this may help slow snow melt some over the northern tier…which is good because the latest river forecasts show major flooding likely on the Mississippi near St. Paul. Could be another painful Upper Midwest flooding season.
Snow Totals Map for Southeast Minnesota and Western Wisconsin - courtesy of NWS Minneapolis/St. Paul
Well, after all the talk about the chance of snow for this weekend in the interior Northeast, it turned out to be mostly just model error…but kudos to the European model which did a fairly decent job in calling that this would mainly be a Lakes/Midwest beast. Something is just inherently wrong with the GFS that it can’t handle certain things well…especially interesting considering the ensemble track was south and east even of the model. Let’s discuss what’s up.
First the blizzard. Just massive. Most of you know about the Metrodome roof collapsing under the snow (not unprecedented, but they aren’t going to have that place ready for a game tomorrow). More details on the storm’s impact in Minnesota here.
Storm totals were as high as 23″ in Polk County, WI, 21.5″ in New Market and Shakopee, MN, 21″ at Oakdale, MN, and 20″ at Red Wing and Maplewood, MN.
Blizzard Warnings remain in effect today from eastern Iowa to the NW suburbs of Chicago and Milwaukee and N Michigan. Winter Storm Warnings are posted for Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, parts of Ohio, and the Appalachians from PA to Tennessee. And Winter Weather Advisories are posted all the way into far N Alabama and Georgia! On top of that, freeze and wind chill warnings/advisories are posted for the Deep South all the way into southern Florida, where nighttime lows early this week are going to rival what we saw back in January. Another round of lake effect snow is going to hammer Central and Western New York again this week (though to me the trajectory looks a little more northerly than what occurred last week, which would mean less snow for places like Syracuse). But we’ll see.
Overall, winter is in force in the Eastern US. At the same time, we’re going to break record highs today across SoCal, with widespread mid 80s expected. Amplification…what goes up must come down…strong, deep trough in the East = strong ridge in the West usually. And we are in an extremely amplified pattern…and the anomalous nature of this amplified pattern is going to remain in place for the foreseeable future. That means more fun to come.
So what do I think is to come?
We have a couple systems to watch. With extreme blocking in place, the storm track is going to look a lot like last winter. One weak wave looks to pass through the southern US Wednesday night-Thursday night. It’s a flat wave though, so I question if other than some nuisance freezing rain or sleet if it will pack much punch. It will serve though to reinforce the cold over the East for next weekend.
CPC Graphic Showing Ensemble Forecast of Arctic Blocking
A more important storm is evident on the European model for the end of the weekend or early next week. This shows a more amplified storm, which if taken literally, shows a substantial snow chance from the Carolinas to DC and possibly into New England. The GFS isn’t showing much other than a cold pattern right now and keeps everything offshore (not uncommon for this model to miss a feature like this though). I am getting somewhat on board for at least the threat of a snow/winter weather event in the Mid Atlantic and possibly the Northeast next weekend or early Christmas week.
The pattern is active later this week with a 140+ kt jet stream pointed right into California. This isn’t too unlike what we saw a lot of last winter in the active El Nino pattern. Whether this is too far north or not, I guess we’ll see, but with a load of blocking in Arctic/Greenland and a load of moisture/energy slamming into the West Coast…that to me suggests someone in the East is in for it at some point. It still could track out to sea…it still could track inland…it may be the model misleading us. But it’s evident that the weather pattern is much more intriguing than it has been. We’ll watch this week and see!
Couple things to round this out…
First, if you missed it at all, here’s the incredible video of the Metrodome’s roof collapse in Minneapolis:
Well, after all the talk about the chance of snow for this weekend in the interior Northeast, it turned out to be mostly just model error…but kudos to the European model which did a fairly decent job in calling that this would mainly be a Lakes/Midwest beast. Something is just inherently wrong with the GFS that it can’t handle certain things well…especially interesting considering the ensemble track was south and east even of the model. Let’s discuss what’s up.
Blizzard Warnings remain in effect today from eastern Iowa to the NW suburbs of Chicago and Milwaukee and N Michigan. Winter Storm Warnings are posted for Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, parts of Ohio, and the Appalachians from PA to Tennessee. And Winter Weather Advisories are posted all the way into far N Alabama and Georgia! On top of that, freeze and wind chill warnings/advisories are posted for the Deep South all the way into southern Florida, where nighttime lows early this week are going to rival what we saw back in January. Another round of lake effect snow is going to hammer Central and Western New York again this week (though to me the trajectory looks a little more northerly than what occurred last week, which would mean less snow for places like Syracuse). But we’ll see.
Overall, winter is in force in the Eastern US. At the same time, we’re going to break record highs today across SoCal, with widespread mid 80s expected. Amplification…what goes up must come down…strong, deep trough in the East = strong ridge in the West usually. And we are in an extremely amplified pattern.
What’s to come?
We have a couple systems to watch. With extreme blocking in place, the storm track is going to be pushed further south. The classic, “it’s too cold to snow” pattern for much of the north. One weak wave looks to pass through the southern US Wednesday night-Thursday night. It’s a flat wave though, so I question if other than some nuisance freezing rain or sleet if there will be any real wintry precipitation anywhere with it. It will serve though to reinforce the cold over the East for next weekend.
A more important storm is evident on the European model for the middle of week two (Christmas week). This shows a more amplified storm, which if taken literally, shows a substantial snow chance from the Carolinas to DC. The GFS isn’t showing much other than a cold pattern right now. I am getting somewhat on board for at least the threat of a snow event in the Mid Atlantic next week sometime. The pattern is active later this week with a 140+ kt jet stream pointed right into California. This isn’t too unlike what we saw a lot of last winter in the active El Nino pattern. Whether this is too far north or not, I guess we’ll see, but with a load of blocking in Arctic/Greenland and a load of moisture/energy slamming into the West Coast…that to me suggests someone in the East is in for it at some point. We’ll seeWell, after all the talk about the chance of snow for this weekend in the interior Northeast, it turned out to be mostly just model error…but kudos to the European model which did a fairly decent job in calling that this would mainly be a Lakes/Midwest beast. Something is just inherently wrong with the GFS that it can’t handle certain things well…especially interesting considering the ensemble track was south and east even of the model. Let’s discuss what’s up.
Blizzard Warnings remain in effect today from eastern Iowa to the NW suburbs of Chicago and Milwaukee and N Michigan. Winter Storm Warnings are posted for Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, parts of Ohio, and the Appalachians from PA to Tennessee. And Winter Weather Advisories are posted all the way into far N Alabama and Georgia! On top of that, freeze and wind chill warnings/advisories are posted for the Deep South all the way into southern Florida, where nighttime lows early this week are going to rival what we saw back in January. Another round of lake effect snow is going to hammer Central and Western New York again this week (though to me the trajectory looks a little more northerly than what occurred last week, which would mean less snow for places like Syracuse). But we’ll see.
Overall, winter is in force in the Eastern US. At the same time, we’re going to break record highs today across SoCal, with widespread mid 80s expected. Amplification…what goes up must come down…strong, deep trough in the East = strong ridge in the West usually. And we are in an extremely amplified pattern.
What’s to come?
We have a couple systems to watch. With extreme blocking in place, the storm track is going to be pushed further south. The classic, “it’s too cold to snow” pattern for much of the north. One weak wave looks to pass through the southern US Wednesday night-Thursday night. It’s a flat wave though, so I question if other than some nuisance freezing rain or sleet if there will be any real wintry precipitation anywhere with it. It will serve though to reinforce the cold over the East for next weekend.
A more important storm is evident on the European model for the middle of week two (Christmas week). This shows a more amplified storm, which if taken literally, shows a substantial snow chance from the Carolinas to DC. The GFS isn’t showing much other than a cold pattern right now. I am getting somewhat on board for at least the threat of a snow event in the Mid Atlantic next week sometime. The pattern is active later this week with a 140+ kt jet stream pointed right into California. This isn’t too unlike what we saw a lot of last winter in the active El Nino pattern. Whether this is too far north or not, I guess we’ll see, but with a load of blocking in Arctic/Greenland and a load of moisture/energy slamming into the West Coast…that to me suggests someone in the East is in for it at some point. We’ll see
Looking ahead, we might have some interesting weather on the horizon around or just after Election Day. Both of the main models we assess…the GFS (American model) and ECMWF (European model) are suggesting low pressure to develop in the East early to middle next week. But, the models disagree on exactly how things are going to pan out. The GFS is a little flatter and slower with the system, which means it doesn’t draw in nearly the same amount of cold air, and doesn’t really deepen the storm as much. The European model is much deeper and is enough to draw in cold air and flip rain to snow over many interior locations (well west of I-95 and the Big Cities).
Wednesday Morning's European Model 500 mb ForecastWednesday Morning's GFS 500 mb Forecast
So at left, I’ve posted both 500 mb (maps of what’s happening about 20,000 feet up) maps for next Wednesday morning. And I think one of the keys is what’s happening out west. If you notice, the Euro (left) paints a fairly robust ridge of high pressure over the West (which is going to create significant heat for California and the interior for the first half of next week). If you compare that to the GFS (right), the ridge is a little skinnier, tilted northeast, weaker and slightly further east (and also has a much broader upper low centered over Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana).
A good rule of thumb for those of you in the east is that if there is a Western ridge centered around the same longitude as Boise, ID, that’s a favorable position for getting interior snow and a decent East Coast storm. The Euro has that; the GFS does not. So which model is right? Generally, this far out, you put your money on the European model. My philosophy when forecasting for California today was that the Euro had the right idea (though not quite AS aggressive as the model is showing) and the GFS broke the western ridge down too quickly. If you look at the ensembles (each model has a set of similar models run with different conditions to provide a forecast blend), you’ll clearly see that the Euro is a little too aggressive with this ridge in the West, and the average falls somewhere between it and the GFS solution.
So my current thinking? Rain, maybe ending as snow for interior locations like Syracuse, State College, and much of West Virginia. If the Euro is right, we will be talking about some accumulating snow in interior parts of New York, Pennsylvania and the mountains of WV and MD. If the GFS is right, don’t expect much. I’ll watch it evolve and post more as we get closer.
More on the Midwest Storm
A good article from WLFI in Lafayette, IN summing up the damage in their viewing area. Some good pictures and details here.
Stu Ostro of The Weather Channel, as always, has a great write up putting the storm in some historical context…in that, while it was a really, really strong, epic storm…it really lacked some of the features of those truly epic storms of the past. The reason? Well, I’ll let him explain.
A couple of fantastic NWS post-mortems with great imagery and details: Duluth, MN and Grand Forks, ND
And I’m not 100% sure if this is included in the above, but this is absolutely ridiculous footage of that tornado (I think), destroying trailers. Incredible…and scary.
Other Links
Speaking of The Weather Channel, it sounds like they’re backpedaling somewhat from their comments about going away from weather only programming.
250 mb Wind Anomalies in Recent Strong La Nina Autumns
It’s not uncommon during La Nina autumns to see massive storms spin up in the Midwest, Lakes, and Plains, thanks in part to a raging strong jet stream coming out of the Pacific Ocean. If you click the map to the left, you can see a composite of the anomaly of 250 mb wind speeds (basically how much stronger or weaker than normal the jet stream winds are) in some recent stronger La Nina autumns, similar to this one. So it’s pretty obvious that this is somewhat normal. What isn’t normal is how much of a beast this storm is.
Yesterday we talked about this storm “bombing” out, which it appears to have done by definition (at least a 24 mb drop in 24 hours). It is now to the point where both state records for lowest barometric pressure have been set in Minnesota and Wisconsin. The previous record in Minnesota was set during a similar fall storm in November of 1998. According to the National Weather Service in Duluth, Aitkin, MN dropped to a barometric pressure of 962.3 mb or 28.42″Hg. The previous state record was 962.6 mb at Albert Lea, MN during that November 10, 1998 storm. In Wisconsin, Superior hit 28.38″Hg or 961.06mb. The previous record there was 963.43 mb in Green Bay in April of 1982.
As of this writing, both Orr and Bigfork, Minnesota are sitting at 28.24″Hg or 956.32mb. If this is verified (and it will likely go even lower in some other parts of Northeast Minnesota), this would break the all-time United States low pressure record for a non-tropical cyclone. The old record of 28.28″Hg was set in Cleveland, OH during the Blizzard of 1978 (and naturally, the Wikipedia article is already up to date with this information!).
Edit to add: 28.22″ as of 3:30 Central time, or 955.6 mb…both at Orr and Bigfork.
National Radar Composite from Late Tuesday, image from NCAR.
So this is truly an historic storm…and one that is not just setting records, it’s causing mayhem! Blizzard Warnings for the Dakotas, literally dozens of tornado warnings in the Midwest and Southeast, numerous tornado watches (5 currently from Mississippi to Southwest NY), widespread wind damage, and quite a change in the weather overall. We had a somewhat rare “High Risk” for severe weather issued this morning by the Storm Prediction Center. So far, there have only been 11 reports of tornadoes, however there have been over 150 reports of strong winds or wind damage thus far, and that number is only going to continue going up.
I’ll try and recap some of the damage reports and more tomorrow.
The CIMMS Satellite Blog, as always, does a bang up job (and will likely add more in the coming days) with some imagery from this storm.
Sadly (from a weather junky’s standpoint), the Weather Channel appears to be headed down the road of the rest of cable TV…just when it seemed they were getting back on track. Unfortunately, this is what drives ratings, so they will continue to follow the blueprint until it fails.
State of Occlusion 