- Dec 30, 2018

SKATING ON THIN ICE....

Greetings to all of you from Madison, Wisconsin. The family and I are spending the weekend at the Edgewater Resort. After all the chaos of Christmas this is our time together for the 3 of us to do a little bonding. This is the view out of our window at the ice skating rink below. (Wisconsinites take their ice seriously). Christmas music is continuously playing. A very festive atmosphere!

Here is Eden before going out to dinner. She's 14 and growing up fast. I don't even know her anymore. She's getting kind of pretty!

RK has been kind enough to handle the TSwails duties while we are gone. I'm not supposed to be messing with weather. However, they went to the pool so I'm sneaking in a quick post on the New Years Eve system since it has the potential to impact travel and events around the area.

As it stands now, the one issue that's holding this storm back from being a bigger problem is the limited cold air. That means instead of a solid 3-6" of snow for my area, rain, freezing rain, and snow will all combine to create a sloppy mess. Snow accumulations of 1-3" will still be possible in spots but timing the transition from liquid to frozen precipitation makes it difficult to pin down exact totals. In fact, it would not shock me if some spots stayed predominately rain. A 1 degree difference in temperatures could make a 1-2" difference in snow totals.

I do expect winter weather advisories to be issued for much of my area later today. This would be for the potential of snow and perhaps some freezing rain. A few areas could see it at the onset of the storm before a change to rain but the worst of it should be later Monday or Monday evening when thickness levels collapse changing the rain to snow for the final 1/3 of the event.

I haven't had time to dig into it as much as I would like but RK will get the specifics out in her next post. I will throw out some snow forecasts to give you an idea of what models are showing. This will be wet and sloppy with temperatures close to the freezing mark. Best chances for heavier snow accumulations (1 to perhaps 3") seems to be near a line from Cedar Rapids to Dubuque and on to Madison. The EURO is a bit further SE so this will need to be fine tuned later.

The NAM: