ONE DOWN, ANOTHER TO GO?

The first of two snow systems blew through my central counties Thursday, depositing a band of generally 1–3 inches of powder. The fast moving clipper did most of its damage in a 4-hour window, wasting little time on its journey E/SE from Iowa into Illinois. Here are some of the snow reports indicated through Thursday evening by way of the Iowa Mesonet.

Some specific plots showing the more substantial amounts of 2-3 inches, 20 to 30 miles either side of I-80.

This is the satellite representation of the compact clipper around 1:45 pm Thursday afternoon. As expected, I, for one, did not see a single flake of snow in Dubuque. Moline picked up 1.6 inches, officially the first 1-inch snowfall of the season there.

MAJOR WINTER STORM TAKES A SWING AT OUR NEIGHBORS

The next couple of days, (Saturday-Sunday), the region is between storms. Dry weather will dominate the Midwest, with cold temperatures ruling the roost. Highs will largely be in the low to mid 20s, several degrees below normal.

That leads us into the big storm that will be a high impact event over northern Missouri and much of the southern half of Illinois, states where winter storm watches are in effect for Sunday and Sunday night.

The watches will be upgraded to warnings in many areas Sunday as the storm makes its way across far southern Missouri into western Kentucky.

That's a track that leaves the majority of my area with little if any snow. The exception would be across the far south, especially south of HWY 34 where light to moderate accumulations are likely.

My confidence continues to increase that the system if anything is going further south than was indicated yesterday. Here's the individual plots of the surface low position Sunday evening on the EURO ensemble. WC Kentucky is where members are focused and that won't get the job done for widespread snow this far north. Even in the far south, (south of HWY 34) totals are down to the 2-4 inch range.

Here's what the EURO is now suggesting for snow totals. You get north of an Ottumwa, Burlington, Galesburg line and dry air is preventing the snow from advancing further north. From about I-80 north, not even a trace of snow is indicated. This is my favored solution.

The GFS is nearly identical to the EURO with the surface low position, yet it does drop up to 5 inches of snow as far north as the Quad Cities. It has 18" in Keokuk, compared to 4.9" on the EURO. I do not think the GFS is handling the dry air intrusion, and I think it's too far north and heavy with the snow shield. I don't buy it.

The 12k NAM looks pretty good (and close to the EURO), aside from the fact it's a bit heavy. I doubt the 11.5" in Keokuk.

The 10k GEM is in the ballpark yet still a bit heavy.

Basically, the only guidance showing snow to I-80 is the GFS. It's an outlier, and I suspect it will eventually come to the idea of the other models. If not, I am flat out wrong.

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COLD IS CREEPING IN...

Once the storm departs early next week, the general flow aloft is NW and that should see to it that temperatures the next 2 weeks remain on average well below normal. Here's the week one temperature departures for January 4-11th.

The week 2 departures for January 12th-19th don't look much different, and if anything are a bit colder.

The NW flow also restricts moisture and about the only way to get precipitation is with some sort of clipper, which generally produces small amountss. These are also narrow, and getting under one is no easy task.

Unless something drastically changes, for most of my area it's a miss from the big storm which pounds Missouri and the southern half of Illinois Sunday. South of HWY 34, you are still in the game for 2–5 inches, which could be lower if the track shifts even further south. Tomorrow will be a day to fine tune those details as the event approaches. Until next time, roll weather...TS