KEEP THE SHOVEL HANDY...

terryswails1
12 hours ago
4 min read

It's been quite a week for weather here in the good old Midwest. First it was a major snowstorm that broke November snowfall records, then a smaller event, and finally the icing on the cake, record-breaking cold to kick off the month of December. And we're not done yet, the shovel will come in handy again by Sunday thanks to a fast moving clipper. It would be fair to say we are on a roll.

To recap the cold, record lows were set Thursday morning across much of Iowa. Spencer, in the northwest, fell to 19 below zero and Waterloo had an impressive minus 15. Locally, temperature records were broken for the date in Cedar Rapids, Dubuque, and Moline. The 11 below in Cedar Rapids was the earliest for a negative double-digit low since 1891 there. Needless to say, it's very early in the season to see low temperatures of this magnitude.

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MORE SNOW ON THE WAY...

Fortunately, the worst of this cold event is behind us and rising temperatures have been noted overnight due to the return of southerly winds. Ahead of a weak cold front Friday, temperatures will look quite a bit better than yesterday, with highs expected to crest in the range of 27 north to 33 south. Clouds will also be on the increase come afternoon as the trough to the north approaches.

It essentially passes quietly Friday night before stalling over southern Iowa Saturday morning. That will leave us with mix of sun and clouds and slightly cooler temperatures of 23 to 29 from north to south. The stalled boundary eventually becomes the axis for a clipper to track along Saturday night. Models have come into better agreement today on the system with the GFS further northeast, pretty close to what the EURO was suggesting yesterday.

With that in mind, let's take a look at what the ensembles are showing for snow at a 10:1 ratio. Remember, ensembles are an average of multiple solutions with slightly different inputs. It takes a lot of the noise out of the output.

The EURO ensembles

The GFS ensembles.

Below are the deterministic solutions, a single run of each model using the Kuchera method, which accounts for higher snow ratios based on colder temperatures which allows the snow to fluff up more. I'm seeing reasonably good consistency between models of a warming trend

The EURO

The GFS

The 3k NAM

The 12K NAM

The HRRR

Again, snow develops late Saturday evening and exits early Sunday. Due to the rapid pace of the system, snow will only fall for a limited window of 6–8 hours, which keeps totals manageable in the range of 2–4 inches, perhaps 5 in a small axis.

After the snow stops Sunday morning, another burst of cold air arrives and after readings in the morning of 16 to 22, falling temperatures will have readings by evening in the range of 6-12 from north to south. That sets us up for another sub-zero morning Monday, with lows that look like this on the GFS.

Next week, the strong NW flow deamplifies enough to take a couple more clippers further north into Minnesota and Wisconsin. That implies we'll be in the warm sector with southerly winds ahead of them. Highs should hit the 30s, perhaps even 40. Were it not for snow cover, we could be significantly warmer than that. Here's what the GFS shows for temperatures December 5th through the 19th in the Quad Cities.

The new NBMv5 which uses a combination of models and ensembles is not quite as aggressive with the warmth.

While there is good support for several mild days around December 10th, the MJO remains in phase 8 on the EURO from now until well past January 2nd on the EURO.

The GFS in a different twist makes a swing from 8 back into phase 7, but I think it's overdone and should correct more toward the EURO solution before returning it's

Either way, both phase 7 and 8 analog to below normal temperatures in December, so I don't think the mild weather is likely to be around too long. In fact, I would not be surprised if we see an Arctic air mass intrusion sometime before or shortly after Christmas.

I think it's fair to say the powerful northern stream jet is giving models fits, and the 10-15 day long range period has low confidence as a result. No doubt, there are some things that don't add up, and that bothers me. I'm working hard to get a grip on it. Meantime, it's Friday, and that's all right by me. Roll weather...TS.