Greetings and welcome!
Storm preparations will be under way here as soon as I get done writing up my report. Yeeha! I will be throwing in about a week’s worth of firewood, checking on the snow plow, getting a couple of gallons of premium to top off the tank in the sled while I am in town getting supplies, and buttoning things down for the winds. That is the short list anyway.
Today we are expecting 1-3 as a moisture starved storm passes our way. The snow is expected to hit a little more toward the UP border, but we are in for as much as 2-3 with it tapering off to an inch or so by Green Bay. So far it doesn’t look very promising. There is a decent pressure gradient to the storm, meaning that we could see 30-40mph wind gusts this afternoon.
The storm for Tuesday afternoon into Wednesday is looking good. It is a strong storm, and it is showing up consistently in the forecast models. There is a lot of moisture associated with the storm, and if we make the right side of the rain/snow line, the NWS forecast discussion talks about 6-13 inches. With us close to the line, it might be heavy packing snow too.
Right now the HPC has our QPF, Quantitative Precipitation Forecast, at about 1-1.25″ between now and Thursday. IF (big if) that comes as snow, at a 12:1 ratio we are looking at 12-15″ total between now and Thursday.
The rain/snow line looks like a close call. Model guidance is showing us in the right neighborhood, but at two days out it is still speculative where it will be. Even if it starts as rain, the storm is shown having a snowy finish. I think that the NWS takes that into account in their forecast discussion when they say that there is potential for 6-13″.
It isn’t really covered in the forecast yet, but we are looking at some wind with this storm too. There is a significant pressure difference between the storm and the high pressure to the east. The storm is shown tightening up and strengthening as it hits our region, so I would expect blowing and drifting to be part of it, along with some big wind gusts.
The NWS seems pretty confident in this storm and that it could be snow.
Tuesday…Cloudy with a chance of light snow. Highs in the lower 30s. Southeast wind 10 to 15 mph. Chance of snow 50 percent.
Tuesday Night…Snow. Significant accumulation possible. Blustery. Lows in the upper 20s. Chance of snow 90 percent.
Wednesday…Occasional snow. Some accumulation possible. Highs around 30. Chance of snow 90 percent.
Wednesday Night…Cloudy with a chance of light snow. Lows in the upper teens. Chance of snow 40 percent.
A 90% chance of snow for Tuesday night and Wednesday is a fairly bold prediction for a Sunday morning forecast. My forecast guidance is pretty unanimous too. Only the skeptic in me entertains the possibility of it taking a right turn and pounding Alabama instead.
There is another decent sized storm showing up for about Friday. That one is not well agreed on by the models. One has it going east and south, one has it just clipping us, one shows what I want to see.
Looking out the window and at the radar, today’s storm is starting to look like a disappointment. It has been snowing on radar for a while, but it isn’t snowing here on the ground, and there is no accumulation yet. Hopefully it will redevelop and snow later.
It did end up snowing on Friday. About sunset it started coming down fast with some big snowflakes. It added up to 1/2″-1″, half of which the sun has eaten since. The snow did slick the roads up and give drivers some very limited visibility, but it was over in an hour or two and didn’t add up beyond an inch.
Right now our hopes are on the Tuesday storm, and maybe the Friday storm.
That’s about it from here. Have a good weekend and thank you for visiting!
RJB