Greetings and welcome!
Noon-
With the exception of the HPC, all of the guidance in front of me shows Thursday’s storm to be a bull’s eye for us. The GFS, NAM, and even the European models are in pretty good agreement that we are in the running to get spanked with 8+ inches, and possibly a good bit higher. The TV and NWS forecasts are up to a 70% chance of some kind of snow.
John Dee, the NWS, and the TV weather guy all wisely suggested caution on the certainty of the forecast. It is a Thursday storm and it’s Monday.
There is also the issue that the HPC is not on board with the forecast, and has the whole storm almost a full state south of the others. The nice ones have the low going over about Milwaukee, the HPC pushes it to far southern IL and IN, almost to Kentucky.
I will also enter into it that the GFS and NAM wouldn’t look too much different if I got to color the maps myself like a wish list. That always brings up red flags. At that point it is the standard pre-storm protocol.. I am allowed to get a little excited about it, I’ll definitely prepare for it, but I won’t believe it ’till can roll in it.
If you look at the far reaches of the GFS link, the storm for the 27th is still looking good. As shown it would be a good one. At 10 days out it is mostly a pleasant cartoon that we hope works out.
Everything looks pretty good right now for the storm so I am off to go and get ready for it.
RJB
Early update-1am
There is still a storm coming for mid-week, and the opinions on how it will happen still vary.
The GFS model is about 50 miles closer to perfect for the storm track, and another 50-100 miles farther north and we would be in the heaviest snow.
The NAM is showing the storm in the far reaches of it’s scope only as far as the low at the SW corner of WI. That trajectory looked pretty good or maybe just a touch north of ideal, entering the chance of a rainy start to the storm, but a good finish.
The HPC had the storm tracking much farther south, across southern IL. The QPF still suggested that we could see a 3-6 storm up here and Milwaukee and Chicago would get big snow.
With a worst case scenario of 3-6 and a decent chance of significant snow I am pretty upbeat about the outlook. If there was a Buy It Now button, I’d be on it.
Sunday was pretty warm and the snow wasn’t taking it well. There were spots where the slushy snow will freeze in nicely, and spots that are too far gone. I will get a look at more trails when I go to Lakewood/Townsend/Carter later today.
It was a good day in the shop Sunday. I got it set up for working on snowmobiles and pulled the Indy Trail in. That passed with good marks on most stuff. I put a right carbide on one ski without incident. The other carbide was welded on and not just a little. I ended up replacing the ski and the carbide, along with the spindle bolt. That one got registered today, so once I go through the chain case and clutches and fill the tanks, it is trail ready.
Next up is the pretty RXL. We’ve already heard about that one. As long as I have one good runner I can spend a little time on that one and get it really right.
The verdict isn’t in on the AGM battery after a year. It was pretty dead so I will test it after a slow charge overnight. I’m skeptical.
We have snowmobile safety classes coming up December 26-27th at the Legion Clubhouse in Wausaukee. Contact Ron Rost at 414-573-2817 between 7-9pm.
One thing that I neglected to cover in the weather above is the later reaches of the 16 day GFS forecast model. It is showing a HE-uuuuge storm for the 27th, a real dandy. There is another good one showing up for New Years too. While it is a little silly getting all excited about a two week forecast, I like what it says.
That’s news for now. Have a good Monday and thank you for visiting!
RJB
5am- The above is based on an earlier model run available at 1am. The latest run has the GFS very favorable for heavy snow for NE WI. It is just about an ideal set up for this area. As shown it would probably be a 12-16″ storm, with some big winds behind it. Here is a link to a GFS loop of it.
The NAM would still bring a good storm, but is a little farther north than I would like to see. We could see some rain or a mix at least initially.