Greetings and welcome!
We had about 2-3″ of puffy clipper snow last night. Add that to the 3-4″ from previous storms and we are in the 6-7″ range on the ground.
Both Iron Snowshoe and Near North are out panning the trails down. Near North closed down all of their trails to all traffic, even the year ’round ones, so that they can try to lay down a base. Iron Snowshoe said that if the snow plays out they hope to open trails this weekend.
Looking at tomorrow’s storm.. Holy Cow the weather buddies are getting excited.
The storm is a monster sized winter storm. The models are showing it getting as strong as 973Mb Central pressure as it moves away. That is a similar central pressure as a low end Cat 2 hurricane. There is a very sharp pressure gradient, meaning a lot of wind.
The models are showing a similar track as the last storm, but this is a much larger storm so we might get some snow. How much? The NWS is usually very conservative on their snow total predictions, and they are predicting 5-9″ tomorrow and 3-5″ Friday night. Really? 8-14″?
The ECMWF (European) model is showing us getting about 9″ here. They are showing Green Bay in at about 14″ and as I progress toward the IL state line the numbers go up to 16 and 18″. Add in some 40mph winds and our friends to the south might be in for a full on disaster.
The winter storm watch mentions near blizzard conditions for the Fox Valley and the lakeshore areas.
We have all seen this before. A storm gets more hype than the Super Bowl and we end up with 1-3 or as I like to call it.. watching from the cheap seats. Will it happen again? I don’t know, but I will in 24 hours.
All of the information that I have says that it is going to hit, and all of the models are in good agreement. The NWS has the chance of snow tomorrow at 100% tomorrow and 90% Friday night.
And now we wait.
Have a good Thursday and thank you for visiting!
RJB
Event- The Near North Club is having a ‘Meat & More’ raffle this Saturday (1-13-2024) at the Nimrod Inn in Athelstane from 1-4pm. Proceeds go to trail grooming and related expenses.