SOME LAST THOUGHTS ON THE STORM

After several intense days of of tracking and forecasting our latest winter storm, which is still doing its thing, I'm making a final post before handing this off to my right hand gal (RK, better known as Rebecca Kopelman). She will get you through the early hours of Tuesday and then I will follow up with the final stages of the storm.

With that, I will show you the snow totals that have come in so far. These are far from complete but give you a general idea of where the worst of the storm has been found through midnight. There is a lot of missing data that will show higher totals by daybreak. As expected the heaviest amounts have occurred in central and southwest Iowa where 10-14" has fallen through midnight. Amounts such as that in a 24 hour period are very rare and can be expected about once every 15-20 years.

Going forward the storm will slowly diminish as it enters a weakening phase going into Tuesday. These are the additional totals the HRRR forecasts from midnight through the end of the storm Tuesday. Minimal amounts are expected south of HWY 30. Thanks to a last minute shift in the track northward, much of the area south south of I-80 has been spared from the worst of the snow which is a drastic change from what data was indicating a day ago. The rest of the night, amounts are minimal south of I-80 but significant north of HWY 30.

Once this disturbance passes late Tuesday there's not much until Wednesday when a dusting to an inch of new snow is possible in the southern half of my area. Then the focus turns to the next system which arrives Saturday night and Sunday. It's very early in the game but this disturbance has the makings of another significant snow maker for some part of the central Midwest. These are very preliminary snowfall outlooks and are subject to change and I show them just to give you an idea of what is on the table at this early stage of development. For sure these are not forecasts and should be taken as nothing more than the early trends of what could be in our future. Notice the EURO and Canadian GEM are bullish for more significant snow and the GFS is not. Here's the raw data output for the weekend system.

The EURO

The Canadian GEM

The GFS

It will be interesting to see how this all pans out going foreword but I would lean toward the snowier solutions. With that I sign out for now. Roll weather and roll white gold, TS....

A SECOND PRINTING OF MY NEW BOOK IS ON THE WAY...

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