Greetings and welcome!
At <24 hours out I guess it is time to take this storm seriously. The forecast models are in pretty good agreement. We are firmly in the 18-24” band and some are going as high as 30”. This is both an intense and long duration snow event starting Saturday night and reaching into Monday.
The part that has my attention as much as the snow is the wind. I’m looking at the pressure gradient on this storm and we are in for some very strong winds along with the snow. Think gusts of 50+mph. Get ready to hear about blizzard conditions and blizzard warnings*.
* To qualify as a blizzard it needs to have sustained winds or frequent gusts of 35 mph (56 km/h) or greater with snowfall that limits visibility to ¼ mile or less for at least three hours.
The storm will be intensifying rapidly as it passes over us. The central pressure will be dropping from 990mb at the beginning of the storm to 979 as it moves away. That is a serious strengthening. It isn’t a bomb cyclone but it is halfway there. If this were a hurricane it would be a Cat 2 based on central pressure.
The next thing is snowfall rate. Some areas of the storm could have rates of 1-3” per hour. Usually when you have snowfall rates like that you are looking at a wet packing snow. There is a big Gulf of Mexico moisture stream so there will be plenty of moisture to work with.
None of this is going to be kind to trees or power lines. I expect that the power line crews will see some long days and rough conditions.
I think that we will be talking about this storm in future years if it comes off as shown. As it stands I am getting ready to be stranded for a few days with deep snow and extended power outages.
There is of course still the chance that the storm hits Iowa and takes a right instead of a left. We have seen it before. Right now the odds of that are under 20%.
Everything that I have in front of me says buckle up this is going to be a big one.
I am not looking forward to this at all. Yesterday cleaning up the wet heavy snow from the last storm was a rough ride. The big two stage blower would just ride up over the snow every foot or so. I’d pull it back and get to the bottom layer before it would ride up again. It took an hour to go 30′ and punch through the plow pile.
After a break I switched to my little 6hp Honda paddle thrower. It is a hungry little monster that cleaned down to blacktop but it was a lot for it to handle. It still took two more hours to clear a single lane to the road.
Gibbs’ rule number 5 is don’t waste good. After a little cleanup I will be off to the gas station for an extra 20 gallons of generator gas to add to my stash. I have a hunch that I am going to need it.
It is 6:15am and I’ve checked all of the forecast models and watched the morning news weather report. It looks like nothing has changed. We are in for a rough ride. It’s going to be a busy day getting ready.
Happy Pi Day!
RJB