THE SNOW MACHINE IS BACK UP...
For almost a month snowflakes were few and far between around the central Midwest. In fact, that's been the case the entire winter with the primary storm track through Nebraska, NW Iowa, into Minnesota and NW Wisconsin where 4 to 6 feet of snow has been measured.
Finally, a storm came out of the Plains far enough southeast Wednesday to deposit a significant snow to parts of the Midwest and Ohio Valley. The snow machine is back up and running.
As expected, anounts in my NW counties were generally and inch or less but went up quickly east of a line from Mt Pleasant to the Quad Cities on to Sterling and Rock Falls where 2-5 inch accumulations were noted.
As I write this pockets of light snow continue and there may be a few locations SE of the Quad Cities that end up with 6 inch storm totals. Considering a few places in SE Iowa have had an inch or less for the entire winter this was a pretty big dea lfor the snow deprived down that way! Hooray for you...
For sure there are two more systems in the short term that will bring additional snow. The first drops in from the northwest late Thursday night and early Friday. Limited moisture and fast movement will limit amounts but amounts of 1/2 to 1 inch seem reasonable.
After scattered morning snow showers depart Thursday temperatures will be cold with highs gnerally in the upper 20s. Brisk SW winds will allow readings Friday to warm into the low to mid 30s which will eat up most of what snow falls. Later in the day behind the cold front temperatures will begin to fall and by Saturday morning most spots will be in the upper teens north to low 20s south.
A HEALTHY SNOW MAKER
The cold front that sweeps through Friday temporarily stalls in Missouri Saturday. It creates a strong thermal gradient with single digits in NW Iowa and mid 40s in central Missouri.
That boundary will be the focus of our next significant snow maker. A disturbance will run west to east along it creating what should be a nice over-running snow event. Recent trends indicate the area near and north of I-80 under the gun for the heavier amounts but it's still a little early to say with high confidence. Snow ratios should be close to 15:1 so this will be a light fluffy type of snow. It does appear likely that a swath of 2-5 inch accumulations are possible with some local spots up to 6 inches in banding. That would make it a high end winter weather advisory event, just under winter storm status. Again, it's 3 days away but here are the early trends of what models are suggesting for accumulations with snow falling much of the day Saturday.
The EURO
The GFS
The Canadian
THE BITTER COLD BACKS OFF
Sunday morning falling snow is gone and the door starts to open for much colder weather next week. However, the GFS and EURO have significantly backed off on the depth and duration of the cold air. Check this out, the morning run of the EURO meteogram for Cedar Rapids indicates 5 days with sub-zero chill Monday-Friday of next week. It has two mornings of 24 below.
Just 12 hours later the night run has only 3 sub-zero mornings and the coldest is 11 below on the 31st as compared to 24 below the 2nd and 3rd on the earlier run. The coldest high temperature is 10 compared to 4 below.
The GFS was the first to catch this trend and never gets colder than 3 below compared to 24 hours earlier when it had 24 below. Overall it is now the warmest of the major models and it seems to be getting support from the EURO. Make no mistake there is some good old fashioned cold ahead of us for a few days but no where near as extreme as indicated 24 hours ago. Additionally, the cold seems destined to last for a relatively short period (5-6 days) before quickly moderating. The GFS has highs in the 40s by February 6th and 7th. A day ago such a scenario seemed unrealistic but today I think there is merit to the idea. With the snow cover 40s may be a push but 30s are a possibility worth considering.
Today's trends of moderation did come as a surprise but considering the nature of this winter and the overall warmth it's displayed, this flip is not as surprising as it would have been in a colder winter. What can I say, nothing shocks me much anymore. The impacts of global warming continue to manifest themselves in extremes and an overall climate that is warmer than normal, the by product of increased water vapor due to higher levels of CO2.
Well, that will do it for this post. Have a rock solid day and roll weather....TS
