More Snow Next Week?

[BrokenBackJack]

Man, just spent my lunch shoveling. I got 15 inches overnight here in the home of Sarah Palin. Got 17 inches last Thursday and another 12-18 inches forecasted this week! Already at 42 inches since Thanksgiving. My oldest kid can't even walk in the backyard. We will pass the wettest year ever on record here by the end of this week and it's all came since July 4th!

Best of luck to everyone digging out. Stay safe and just remember; it keeps the riff raff out!

Why are you in Sarah Palin's home and you got 15''?
Had to say it.

 

[LBrandt]

KDM We don"t bounce like we used too. LB

 

[snow]

Why are you in Sarah Palin's home and you got 15''?
Had to say it.

Hahaha

 

[LBrandt]

I dont mind the snow, you can shove that shit around. Its the ice build up that I hate. The first 1/2 mile west out to the county road has a big shelter belt right up close to the road on the south side so road doesn't get much sun through and ice will last all winter. A little snow on top and it gets slicker than snot and with the pitch they got on the road you have to drive middle or slide into the ditch. LB

 

[tikkalover]

Been a heavy mist here for the last 3 or 4 hours. Highways are very icy.
Daughter drove from Plaza to Minot at 5 o'clock and watched a couple cars hit the ditch.
Weather and roads are going to suck balls until Saturday or Sunday.

 

[Zogman]

Freezing mist here in Valley City. I've just upgraded us to "Super Suck". Oh how I love having to move around on a sheet of ice. So much fun!!

FYI. I have an older pair of Sorels. I screwed a few very short (1/2 inch) self tapping eavestrough screws in the bottom of the soles. They can be removed and you never see where they were. It helps a lot.

 

[CatDaddy]

Latest from Eric Snodgrass:

 

[CatDaddy]

It's not really a "which site..." question. That is the European model (ECMWF), there are a large number of different models out there run by different government entities, the GFS and NAM are run by the National Weather Service. Nonetheless, they all have their pros and cons, but the GFS and Euro are the two most popular so far as I can tell. In general since the models are run and maintained with taxpayer dollars, the results are freely available. So there are a number of websites that bring them in, but it's important to remember that the models are not owned by the individual websites, they're just freeloading off of your tax dollars.

Allen, what are your thoughts on the LRC predictive model?

https://www.wdayradionow.com/weather/43468-the-lrc-and-what-it-says-for-us-into-spring

https://weather2020.substack.com/p/introduction-of-thelrc-48aa726c4e25

 

[Kurtr]

Damn you would think they might get lucky and get it right at least once. We got less than a quarter inch last night. I can wear my sandals out side and the snow isn’t even close to my toes. Was expecting snowmagedon this morning. disappointing

 

[snow]

Weather map this morning is even in rainbow colors! WTF? It's not "Pride month" again is it?

No precip here yet just strong wind rattling the house,with Temps mid 30"s heavy rain on the way,still 4-8" of snow predicted up north,better them then us here in Central mn.

 

[shorthairsrus]

Overrated slow moving system that is going to drop snow and fzn rn. No major wind or cold until late week. In other words fridays blowinfg snow will be worse. Plus the snowcross wknd will be fridgid

They hype up weather so bad now days.

I sat through the bomb cyclone at levis field watching the game. It raind just like we get so hyped for nothing

 

[Obi-Wan]

Weather map this morning is even in rainbow colors! WTF? It's not "Pride month" again is it?

No precip here yet just strong wind rattling the house,with Temps mid 30"s heavy rain on the way,still 4-8" of snow predicted up north,better them then us here in Central mn.

you better hope it is not " Pride month " again, you know where that 4-8" is going to go.

 

[tikkalover]

No snow here yet this morning. Still misting, trees are accumulating a good ice layer.

At 5 am they moved the whole state into a winter storm warning.

 

[LBrandt]

FYI. I have an older pair of Sorels. I screwed a few very short (1/2 inch) self tapping eavestrough screws in the bottom of the soles. They can be removed and you never see where they were. It helps a lot.

Have done the same thing with a pair of highly insulated Rocky's for ice fishing works great. Just klicks a lot when you go in the bait shop for minnows. LB

 

[Allen]

Damn you would think they might get lucky and get it right at least once. We got less than a quarter inch last night. I can wear my sandals out side and the snow isn’t even close to my toes. Was expecting snowmagedon this morning. disappointing

I am pretty sure the forecast for last night included freezing rain until past midnight with a total snow accumulation of up to an inch, or so before 0700 today with snow accumulation really picking up as we go through Tuesday. Here by Bismarck it would seem they nailed it as I had less than an inch this morning at 0700 and as of now it's snowing pretty damn good.

 

[Kurtr]

I am pretty sure the forecast for last night included freezing rain until past midnight with a total snow accumulation of up to an inch, or so before 0700 today with snow accumulation really picking up as we go through Tuesday. Here by Bismarck it would seem they nailed it as I had less than an inch this morning at 0700 and as of now it's snowing pretty damn good.

We were supposed to get 3-5 inches over night here. Its snowing now but got along ways to go to get the 12 inches plus they said was going to happen. We got a mist and no rain which thats a bonus

 

[Allen]

Allen, what are your thoughts on the LRC predictive model?

https://www.wdayradionow.com/weather/43468-the-lrc-and-what-it-says-for-us-into-spring

https://weather2020.substack.com/p/introduction-of-thelrc-48aa726c4e25

CatDaddy, first and foremost, I am not a meteorologist so I tread lightly on their turf for the most part. But I do dabble in climate stuff, and this subject would seem to lie somewhere between meteorology and climatology.

I never heard of this before now, but did read the links you provided. First off, it doesn't take a genius to predict that we will get a "storm" of some sorts on Feb 16th, plus or minus some number of days...and plus or minus a state away, or so. So, I would really want to hear from the people who specialize in this sort of mid-range forecasting. One thing I do know though is that it is not uncommon at all for the first half of winter to be very unlike the second half of winter. A few years ago we were in mid-late January and had very little to no snow across most of western ND and when the media called to ask what our spring flood season was going to look like, I would lead them through the numbers of snow-water equivalent on the countryside. I think we were generally less than an inch of SWE. At the end of the interview I just mentioned that while nothing is impossible, the remainder of winter would have to be pretty darn miserable to get us into the 4+ inches of SWE that puts us at risk of widespread flooding. Well, wouldn't you know it...come February it started snowing and was in general a pretty miserable second half of the winter and put us right around 4.5 inches of SWE across many of the small watersheds in western ND. We ended up with fairly minimal flooding, but it demonstrates how quickly things can change. The LRC would have to be considered a complete bust for that year.

That being said, there is a saying in the met world that the "trend is your friend". Basically that means if you don't have a good reason for forecasting a significant change in the pattern, you should probably hedge your bet with a continuation of the recent patterns. This LRC thing seems to fall under this category.

When I say I dabble in climate, it's because for years I had always told people that if I plotted long-term hydro data, if you squinted really hard you would see cycles in the raw data. So about 12 years ago, a couple mets and I tried to figure out how to get a grip on the cycles.

Here is a graph (busy I know), that shows the maximum stage for the Souris River at Minot and normalized precip. The raw data is in the blue and yellow, and that is what you need to squint at to see patterns. What one can also do though is put a 10-yr moving average on the data and that forms the black and red lines which clearly show a wet/dry pattern with a cycle of roughly 22-25 years from peak to peak. Interestingly, if one looks at the red line, you note that the last peak is substantially muted in comparison the previous peaks. What you are seeing there is the flood control storage bought by the U.S. in Rafferty and Grant Devine (formerly Alameda) dams up in Saskatchewan.

One of the fellows I was working with on this did his M.S. on climate, and he suggested we look at various El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) patterns and combine them with the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO). When you do this meteorologically, you get the following:

What one immediately gleans from the above is that a -PDO and a La Nina (blue lines) have a strong tendency to produce wetter than normal winters even though it isn't a slam dunk. There's definitely overlap with the other combinations.

This is also found in the temperature data:

Note, as little as 0.5 degrees off of normal is noticeable by the layperson. I often ask people if they think the previous month was warmer, colder, or near normal. If the average for the month is off the historical average by as little as 0.5 degrees, about 90% of the people get it right.

Oh yeah, this winter is a -PDO with a La Nina combo. The past couple years were also La Nina, but we've now also been in a -PDO for a while, so take that for what you will.

OK, I think I've gone down the rabbit trail too far, so I'll just stop now.

 

[7mmMag]

I had to drive up to a tower site near Belcourt yesterday for work. Its basically a 4 hr drive one way for me. I left the tower site at 2:30. I drove in mist/rain/fog the entire way. It was miserable. My work vehicle had a little ice accumulation when I got home.

 

[johnr]

I dont mind the snow, you can shove that shit around. Its the ice build up that I hate. The first 1/2 mile west out to the county road has a big shelter belt right up close to the road on the south side so road doesn't get much sun through and ice will last all winter. A little snow on top and it gets slicker than snot and with the pitch they got on the road you have to drive middle or slide into the ditch. LB

I would absolutely get rid of that shelter belt.

 

[shorthairsrus]

Allen - please LRC us a Early Spring!!!