Greetings and welcome!
Monday brought a snowy day. Most of the day featured a very fine snow that made everything look a little hazy. I am probably up to an inch or so as of 10pm Monday night. It is still snowing and there is more on the way.
It still looks like we are going to miss out on the big storm for the most part. When I just checked the HPC QPF it looked like Chicago was ground zero with a band showing as much as 1.25-1.75″ of rainfall equivalent. Multiply that times 12 or 16 to get snow estimates. Golly.
I am looking at a rain snow line about at the first or second purple band, and that is showing a lot of precip possible.
One aspect of the storm that is interesting is the pressure gradient. Most of the time a storm with a central pressure of 1,000mb or 997mb isn’t that impressive. This one will get a lot of horsepower with the contrast between that and the surprisingly high pressure over the Rockies.
I am seeing a high pressure area of 1050mb on the HPC map. That 1050mb pressure is fairly unusual in itself. Contrasting with an area of 997mb 3 or 4 states away will whip up a storm to remember.
Anyway.. A lot of our friends near the southern half of Lake Michigan look to be in for some heavy snow storm and blizzard action.
Around here we are expecting more fine snow from the first wave of the storm. It could be another half inch or so tonight according to the NWS.
After that our area’s forecast is the subject of some debate. The HPC QPF shows us getting skunked. The guy on TV says 1-3 or 2-4 for us. The storm is expected to have a pretty sharp precip cutoff on the north side, and it looks like snow north of Green Bay will be a bonus if it happens.
I am not concerned for the trails. When I did my trip to Lakewood/Townsend/Carter for supplies Monday at about noon the trails all looked good. There was some staining offset by the fresh snow, but other than that they looked great.
I only did a few pictures, mostly because everything was the same color and there was no detail. These pictures are doctored up in Fireworks to show details on the trail. I left one original to show you what they looked like right off of the camera. With the new snow everything was the same color.
[popeye]
I did see that Lakewood and Iron Snowshoe was out grooming, and it looked nice. With no major meltdowns in the meantime and not much weekday traffic, the trails should be a go for this weekend.
I am planning on an outside work day today and hopefully a ride.
That is about it for now. Have a good Tuesday and thank you for visiting!
RJB