Possible winter storm for the area.

Problems with this forecast…Computer models really aren’t agreeing on the track of the storm system…GFS has the system Moving into Southern IA then into Central IL before working it into IN…..Meanwhile NAM has the low moving into Northeast IA/Southwest WI Before tracking it to around the Door County area…..What both models do agree on is that the area of low pressure will become stronger as it pushes East of the area…..EC has a track close to the NAM, however just a tap North, either way once again this should not play accumulations …..Also EC does deepen the low once it moves past the area…..With models agreeing on that…This system should turn out to be a wind jammer……Wind could gust up to 40 MPH at time throughout the FA…Wind could gusts up to 45 to maybe as high as 50 MPH in our wind prone areas…..This will cause problems for high profile trucks, and vans…


Now as far as snowfall amounts….Models aren’t really seeing eye to eye….So have decided to blend NAM and EC models for the snowfall amounts I have threw GFS out the window as it can’t seem to handle any snowfall amount this year!.....The highest total will be along the South Shore of Lake Superior, where there could be 10 plus inches of snow, mainly due to LES…..The 5 to 8 inches snowfall areas also have a chance for some LES this is the reason for them amount versus going with 3 to 6 inches…..

Tonight and tomorrow some areas could see near to blizzard conditions with winds gusting 35 to 45 MPH throughout the area…Winds along with heavy snow falling, this could lead to blowing and drifting snows, which could cause travel problems later tonight into Sunday late afternoon or Sunday evening.

Also noted in my far Southern areas there may also be more of mix prcip which could hold snow totals down….There will be some mix prcip as the system first cranks up, however this will be changing to all snow rather fast for my Central and Northern areas….

Merry Christmas!

From The Weather Center, we wish you and your families a very Merry Christmas!

Today's snowfall

Today we picked up 3.00 inches of snow here at the office....Snowfall ranged from 1 to 3 inches across the FA....A white Christmas for the parts of the FA...Won't melt tomorrow like a lot of people think it will...Temps ranging from 28 to 33....

Why one needs to use different radars.

Here is a good example as to why one needs to use different radars to see where precip may or may not be at….One radar grab is from DHL, the other is from MPX….One can clearly see the difference on these two radar views.

Some info.

Still won't issue a forecast...Short term forecasts have been covering things rather well..So will keep doing that...No big cold snaps or big winter storms seen right through Christmas....The end of the first week on the New Year still looks like a big weather pattern change coming to the area....

Big changes in the weather coming/some interesting weather facts.

Looks like a big change in this boring weather pattern is coming in January…Looks like either the end of the first week or the start of the second week of January….So if you love this warm weather get out and enjoy it the next couple of weeks…..Snow lovers hang in there your time is coming very soon!!.....

Some interesting facts about the weather for Rice Lake WI…
Our warmest month is July.
Our coldest month is January.

Our windiest month is April.
Our Calmest month is August.

Snowiest month is January.
Months without snow are as follows….June, July, August…Snow has been reported in all other months.

Our wettest month is August.
Our driest month is February.

Our Sunniest month is July.
Our cloudiest month is November.

This is all based on averages….

Looking back at Nov 2011

I know am late with this….Nov was a up and down ride in temps and precip….Overall temps were slightly above average here at the office….

We a total of 4.50 inches of snow..

Snow days are as follows…

Nov 10… We had 1 inch.

Nov 19… we had 3 inches.

Nov 30… we had ½ inch…
Total snowfall...4.50 inches

We also had one thunderstorm day.

Nov 15. We had a thunderstorm this was thundersnow…

So we had one thundersnow day……

Looking back at  Nov 2010…

We had 11 inches of snow…

We had 1 thunderstorm day/thundersnow day.

Precip report

This picture shows we pick up 0.42" of precip from 7 AM yesterday through 7 AM this morning...
This is melted down...So rain/sleet and snow for this total....See post below for how to read the gauge the right way! Does make a big difference if one reads the top line,which is the wrong way....I do know some who read their gauge like that...A big NO, NO....

Water content

Here is the total water content of the snow/sleet/rain fall through 7 AM this morning.
You have to read the bottom line, as the water fills up the tub, the liquid will curve....This is aka meniscus....One has to read the bottom/base of the curve or the meniscus to get an accurate reading.Here is a picture....So here I have 0.16 of water....The reading won't be 0.17 as most would think....Just a fast lesson in reading a rain gauge....

Snow/sleet/rain

This morning has brought us a wintry mix of snow/sleet/rain....Here at the office we picked up 3/4 inches of snow with sleet....Roads are slippery this morning throughout parts of the area..... Here are a couple of pictures....

Below zero already

1.4 below right...Last night we hit 5 below...Looks like tonight should be the same story....A nice little warm up on the way for this weekend...Don't worry snow lovers we will not melt all the snow!!...
The mid to end end of next week is really looking interesting...Major snow storm is looking more likely...Still this is far out there and won't worry about it....Though looks like this system will have warmer air to work with....So the way it looks right now my Southern areas should see all rain...Central areas rain/snow mix....My Central areas in the Central areas should see all snow as well as my Northern areas...Will go in depth on this Sunday or Sunday night...For now will let models play their little games....GFS is playing the to far and East game though its 18z runs were closer to the ECMWF....I did use the ECMWF as it has been showing the same track over the last few days....Like always this model has done great on this years winter storms so far...GFS well it sucks....So will run with EC, one can't throw out it's track record from last winter and this winter so far!!....

Below zero....

There we have it our first below zero reading of this winter 2011/2012....At 12:19 AM we dropped to -1.3 degrees.... Now we are at -2.0 degrees...

Still plowing the roads

A small video clip from on the way back home....Should have been out long before this....Still got some action.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41iKCzqZCI4

Pictures from last night's snow event

I didn't take a reading yet, wanted to get pictures in case the wind becomes stronger...Great photo ops up here....

updated snowfall amount

Almost up to 7.50 inches of snow.....

5.00 inches of snow.

5 inches of snow as of 8 PM still snowing very hard.

Still snowing very hard

Here are some more pictures from tonight's snow event.

3.00 inches

Picture says it all and it's still snowing very heavy.

Heavy snow falling at the office.

Heavy snow falling at the office we have 3 inches so far,still snowing heavy.

Updated snowfall map

Here is the current thinking on the lastest snowfall amounts...See discussion below for the details....

Fast discussion on today's and tonights snow event.

Will leave fine tune the snowfall map some in a little.....However the dark blue shaded area looks like 4 to 6 inches will be more likely with some iso areas seeing 6 to 8 inches...That is if stronger instability can move in, this will depend on how strong the thunderstorms down to the South can become...The deformation areas does setup more to the North...From the Twin Cities over Eau Clarie Rice Lake and Ladysmith area....A dry slot if forecasted to move into Southeast MN and Southwestern WI so with our snowfall map those areas should see from 2 to 5 inches of snow....That areas would be from Rochester MN over around the Nesillsvile area of WI. Some areas with that area could see some 6 inches reports,however rule off thumb is to run with 2 to 5 inches of snow....

Updated snowfall map

In the dark blue is where we are forecasting snowfall amounts of 6 plus inches. We did talk about adding some 8 inch snowfall amounts in that area, however it does not look like a widespread deal,just a few reports of 8 inches may been seen,however 7 inches would be more the realm. The red area we are calling for 2 to 5 inches. The light blue 1 to 2 inches. This system is still not 100% written in stone yet so Dirk may have to change this map tomorrow morning. This snowfall amounts may be less if strong thunderstorms form to the South down over MO and so on.Just another reason why we didn't go higher in the forecasted amounts. Southern areas may also see less if this system moves 50 miles West/Northwest,as this would allow for more warmer air to drawn into those areas keeping more of a mix percip going.Still a lot of things to keep an eye on with this system. Can't stress this enough, this winter storm is not wriiten in stone in any shape or form yet.By tomorrow morning Dirk should have things all worked out. I rather hold off on issuing a forecast at this time due to reasons stated above.I was one the fence about updating the snowfall map I would have rather waited for the 0z runs to come in. I'm almost sure this will end up going back to the first map that was out on Wednesday.
Forecaster/Paul.

A weeee little chilly

A chilly night as of 10:52 PM it is 8.5 degrees....Good ice making weather...I sure hope we don't get any snow for about a good week or two!!!

Forecast will stand. Snowfall map will stand.

Am going to leave the ongoing forecast stand as is...Models today really not helping much,GFS still is way to South with the track of this system,While NAM and ECWMF have been hold the same track over the last few days...I really don't like Nam's output for QPF....However ongoing forecast and snowfall map was based more in the line with the ECWMF with a blend of NAM's QPF....The Gem model really hasn't been useful either....9 chances out of 10 I'm going to hold off on doing any major changes to the ongoing forecast, if needed it will be done tomorrow evening...Some of GFS memebers are slowly coming around to some with this storm system,seems like GFS is battling it's self now....Will leave snowfall map stand, there was some discussion about lowering some amounts way up North, and going an inch or two higher in the  South...Still looks like warm air may sneak into the far Southern areas to bring a mix on Saturday, and may even be a few hours of just plain rain in that area.This will hold down snowfall amounts...Central and Northern areas will be cold enough through the colum to produce all snow...
***TO RECAP***
Ongoing forecast stands..Snowfall map stands.... No changes are planed to the forecast....Changes will likely be map to snowfall map, reasons above...

This morning's pictures

Here are a few pictures taken this morning...We picked up an inch of snow from this system.

Below is the snow water equivalent.

Pictures from last night and this early morning snowfall

More pictures will be added once I get some in the day time later today.