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| Graphic depicting volume of sub-zero cold. |
And how cold has it been? I thought the graphic to the right was particularly instructive, showing a total of almost 20 full days of sub-zero weather. It would appear we're headed to challenge the largest number of sub-zero hours at MSP airport since 1946.
Twitter links: NovakWeather, Minnesota Forecaster.
Facebook links: NovakWeather, Minnesota Forecaster.
As always great video guys, thank you!
ReplyDeleteBill do you find it strange/interesting that the NWS has only a 50/50 chance of snow with less then an inch of accumulation for Friday and Dr. Novak has MSP clearly in the 2-4" band, in the world of forecasting thats a big difference, at this point who are you believing and why?....you know who I'm pulling for!
Yea, difference noted. I guess I was going with the doctor, who's had the hot hand of late. Course things sound a little less snowy this morning.
DeleteNice video fellas! I like the fact that you are so transparent w your forecast and what data points drove your decision. Keep up the good work!
ReplyDeleteThanks!
DeleteBill and Tom, nice video. However I disagree with the 2-4" over the metro. Normally I agree with you but this time not so much. I just pulled up the NAM bufkit forecast sounding for Fri. at MSP While the DGZ is deep there is a huge dry layer below 800mb as of 8am Friday. The Nam model shows the column over MSP becoming completely saturated by about 11am, I think that is way to fast. It may not get saturated until about 1pm or so. Therefore I think 1-2" is more probable. That is quite a dry layer to over come in about 2-3 hours without better forcing. The simulated radar forecast that you showed may be correct, but I don't think snowfall will reach to the ground until the afternoon. As usual time will tell.
ReplyDeleteI tend to agree Randy. My gut feeling is that the MSP metro will more around the 2" figure than the 4" mark. You will need to head southeast towards RST & LSE to get the 4" totals.
ReplyDeleteSimply put, a fast moving disturbance that has a ton of dry air to overcome. In fact, this could easily bust.
Novak starting to back track abit, ala Dave Dahl, he has dropped the 4-6" band altogether and has removed MSP from the 2-4 band. Now just going with a coating to 2", guess he is falling inline with the NWS.
ReplyDelete@Bill, I love the videos but I do have comment/observation, most of the time when Dr. Novak is showing us graphics and images its usually the NAM model, especially the NAM stimulated radar, why is that? Is it the most accurate? Is it his favorite? Is it the model that is most inline with his snowfall predictions? I know there are other models out for example, GFS, GEM, ECMWF, UKMET, it would be nice to show us what the other models are depicting and if hes not agreeing with them then tell us why. I know the NAM is a short range model, but it would be nice to see what the other models are saying just to compare. Thanks for this site and listening to what a first time "caller" had to say.
ReplyDeleteGood question, Matt. I'll see if Tom can respond. And thanks for your feedback!
DeleteBill,
DeleteI will usually show model data that I agree with. I see little purpose in showing model data that I believe is flawed; this would simply confuse people.
If I'm talking about weather in a 24-48 hour period, my favorite model of choice is the NAM HiRES and/or the WRF. If it is further out than that, then I often migrate to the ECMWF model. However, I've been warming to the GFS lately too.
Doing model comparisons is a great idea & we've done that a few times in our videos. However, this approach is time consuming & can also be confusing to the viewer.
I hope this helps.
This is a sneaky system. Quick hitter that has some dynamics; tough one to predict. I think a general 1"-3" snow is the best bet for the MSP metro with the higher amounts on the southeast side.
ReplyDeleteEven though not much moisture is available for this quick moving system, the bitter cold Arctic air will be rather efficient at squeezing out and fluffing-up the snow. With that being said, it will rapidly accumulate. Plus, since we are in a favorable dendrite growth zone, the flakes will likely have a solid structure to them.
Of course, this could easily bust with all the dry air in place.
For levity's sake, Huttner's beloved GFS from ten days ago:
ReplyDeletehttp://publicradio1.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/updraft/files/2014/02/697-16-day.png
It predicted a high of 15 for today and 30 tomorrow. 30s on Sunday! Hah!
Bill - going along with Matt's requests it would also be nice to see where / how RandyInChamplim sees this dry column ? How/Where can you the depth of dry air? Where/How do you see when it's showing saturation.
ReplyDeleteUse a forecast sounding, which is basically the model predicting what it will look like if you launched a weather balloon from a point at a future time. If you use a model site like Twisterdata.com or weather.cod.edu, you can click anywhere on the map and it will open up a forecast sounding for that point.
DeleteExample: Here is Minneapolis at 6am tomorrow. Red line is temperature with height, green line is dewpoint with height. If they are far apart the atmosphere is not near saturation at that level. When snow falls through that dry air, it will evaporate (actually sublimate) until the whole column gets near saturation.
In this example you can see clear dry air around 900mb (3000 ft) and a little more dry air around 600mb (10000 ft). If you go forward 3 or 6 hours, it shows it saturating by noon, but I'm also a bit skeptical on that.
http://www.twisterdata.com/index.php?sounding.x=514&sounding.y=247&sndclick=y&prog=forecast&model=NAM&grid=221&model_yyyy=2014&model_mm=02&model_dd=28&model_init_hh=00&fhour=12¶meter=CREF&level=SURFACE&unit=none&maximize=n&mode=singlemap&sounding=y&output=image&view=large&archive=false
@Bill....I know tommorrow's snow or no snow is not major but it is interesting enough to follow for the sheer fact that the NWS graphic calls for no inches of snow north of 494 and Novak updated his graphic just a short while ago to include the entire metro core in the 2-4 range....just reading the NWS discussion and Novak's waffling on his bands seems to me no one really knows for sure what will happen....I kind of like sneaky storms like this where the outcome is not a slam dunk....sure it could bust completely but the NWS also said some models are showing locally higher amounts. We shall all see tommorrow.
ReplyDelete@CWY2190 Thanks so much! Great stuff.
ReplyDeleteDry air is definitely a challenge with today's & tomorrow's snow. I believe dry air will win out north of the downtowns today leaving the northern MSP metro with little snow. However, the southern metro (Dakota, Scott, etc.) could easily pick-up 1"-2"+ of snow out of this.
ReplyDeleteTomorrow, the push of dry & bitter cold Arctic air will be in full force. This should eat away @ the snow & suppress the accumulations further south near the MN/IA border.
Good. Finally some good news with this rotten weather.
DeleteBoo. Damn dry air....mucky things up....next week we will be inline for better snowfall, with the arctic air releasing and pacific moisture streaming towards us....no dry air issues next week.
DeleteAre the coldest winters also the snowiest?
ReplyDeleteDefining winter as the period October to April (it did snow in September and May at MSP but across all winters amounts are negligible), and assuming this current winter will feature average snow and temps for March and April ( most likely won't be the case, but just to compare to others) there does not seem to be a very strong signal between snow and temps.
A very simple and immediate way to look at it is to correlate rank temps with rank snow.
If the association was perfect you'd assume the snowiest winter was also the coldest and so on.
When I did that the signal is mildly positive. So coldest winters tended to be snowiest and vice-versa. But it is not a very strong signal (.417 for those who know stats).
For example the snowiest winter on record (83-84) was the 31st coldest... BUT the least snowy (30-31) was the 128nd coldest or the 2nd warmest.
Data is from 1884-85 to date.
Interesting eh? or may not so much?
Interesting stuff, Rigil. Thanks!
DeleteModerate snow now at MSP, moderate to heavy snow band pushing into the loop! Any other reports out there?
ReplyDeleteCurrently snowing in Roseville, just north of the State Fair grounds.
ReplyDeleteAnd it stopped.
DeleteLight snow in Golden Valley.....radar looks interesting, u think that moderate/heavy stuff will get in here?
ReplyDeleteHeavy snow looking out my window in Eden Prairie, is this suppose to continue? All I heard this morning was snow was going to stay south of the metro, wrong!
ReplyDeleteJust drove from RW to Zumbrota and back to Red Wing. hwy 58 was absolutely awful and roads in town here in Red Wing are awful. Easily three inches on the ground, but we've had heavy snow falling for several hours and it's still coming down.
ReplyDelete.9 at MSP, Novak had abit of a shortfall, he should have kept the 2-4 band south of MSP, but this was a close and tough little snowfall.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely a tough call. Some were saying a coating to a half inch.
DeleteHow was it tough? Everyone said a coating to 1" for MSP which is what happened. Maybe it was tough for Novak and not for others.
DeleteIsnt it amazing(frustating) how dry air works......u look at the radar and u see it moving towards our area and then its like it hits a brick wall, dives south and moves south of the metro....just amazes me how that happens like that.
ReplyDeleteSounds like your brother might be about to do you in with the big snow they're expecting back east this weekend. Remind me how many inches you give him? When all is said and done, he may even beat you without the handicap? Sorry... but we can still hope.
DeleteJust imagine how much snow the metro would have received if the arctic high was farther north. We picked up an inch and a half here in the Apple Valley/Burnsville area yesterday. It would have easily been 3 inches or so (like Red Wing) if the high was a little farther north. It would have snowed again today another few inches, and so on. Maybe next week we'll pick up a decent amount. Hang in there, bigdaddy. It's not over yet!
DeleteYep @Bill and @Schnee Meister it doesn't look good with the east coast snowstorm(at the moment my brother is in the heaviest snow zone in central Jersey, their predicting 6-12)....it doesn't look good with my slim lead of 62-57 and then theres the handicap of 20", I'm holding out hope because the competition goes till 4/10 but I admit it looks bleak. I know he lives in Nor'easter country but whoever thought they would be currently sitting at 30" above their seasonal average of 27 without even tommorrows storm added in, they've had a near record year. I have faith that March will be a snowy month for us but the deficit will be a tall mountain to climb.
DeleteYou need to go no-huddle right away.
DeleteGood one, Bill! I hear you, bigdaddy. I just spoke with my sister in Delaware. They have a winter storm watch posted and are now expecting possibly 11 inches, if not more tomorrow night and Monday. If the storm train continues, we will start really increasing our chances up here to get a whopper or two this month. As Yogi Berra said, "It ain't over till it's over!"
Delete@Schnee Meister I love your optimism, kind of like it ain't over till the fat lady sings....I see the NWS has snow chances almost everyday starting Monday night but they didn't sound to opportunistic that they will amount to too much, sounds like coatings or 1-2 inchers....I know they count and add up but time is running out.
Delete@Bill seems like I have been in a no-huddle since the second half started...btw I fired the defensive coordinator along time ago!
@bigdaddy, Novak says "relatively quiet next five days with thaw coming", if you believe what Novak has to say it doesn't look good for snow this week.
ReplyDeleteThanks I saw that, which sucks because when Novak is excited about snow we usually get some or come close to getting some.....but quiet wasn't what I ws looking for, oh well maybe this year wasn't my year.....hey I can't complain we had more then average snowfall and we have had snowcover for the entire winter, was just up against a record-setting east coast.
DeleteIf the east coast were a batter in baseball, it'd be saying that the ball looks the size of grapefruits. They've just got the hot hand. (or cold hand)
DeleteConsidering how cold it's been this winter, I found it hard to believe that we've had more record highs this winter than record lows until today. A record high temp of 47 degrees was set on December 28th but no record cold temps until today where we'll set a minimum high temp of 2 degrees. Looks like we'll break a 141 year old record low temp tonight. I think I've had enough of the cold now.
ReplyDeleteNot sure about the high temp you speak of. The record low maximum for MSP for today is 0 set in 1962. We got to 3 today at 4.47pm according to the NWS. But yeah, a record low minimum for March 3rd is almost certain.
DeleteAlso, this is the coldest start to March since 1943.
I had that wrong. The record low max is 5 today, so yeah, we beat that. We have a shot at beating the record low max for tomorrow, which is 7, set in 2002.
Delete@Bill and Schnee Meister....east coast storm was abit of a dud for central Jersey....arctic cold suppressed the snow farther south, my brother was bumming he only picked up 3 inches...so 62-60.....it also looks like they could be close to done on picking up additional snow for the rest of the winter....so I have a glimmer of hope...need these snow chances this week to produce some snowfall and then have Novak/Duane/Randyinchamplin find me one last major snow dump before the wintwr is up and maybe a few PWL snow dances.
ReplyDeleteThink you got a nice gift there..... they had to settle for a field goal when they had first and goal at the one. :-) (My DC peeps got a nice dump, but even they had a bit less than forecast.)
Delete@bigdaddy, I'm pulling for you, but I just don't feel too enthusiastic about our snow chances here in the metro over the next several days. Maybe we will get some snow showers or flurries, but I don't see any real accumulation anytime soon. I hope I'm wrong, but...
DeleteVery good football analogy Bill and Schnee Meister I agree with that the snow chances this week look weak but sometimes one or two of them may surprise us,at this late stage every inch count.
DeleteYou know what continues to amaze me is how you can have two varyingly different forecasts....case in point NWS has partly cloudy skies for Sunday and Monday and temperatures 33 and 40 respectively and Dave Dahl on tonights blog has rain and snow Sunday becoming all snow Monday.....you can not have two more varingly different forecasts then that.
Southern MN is now in a snow advisory! 3-5 inches.
ReplyDeleteCourtesy of @BoKnowsWeather Will have to keep a close eye to see if the Euro model holds to the trend of a monster storm 3/12 & 3/13 in MN. any thoughts on this?
ReplyDeleteSnow meter update:
ReplyDeleteas of yesteday MSP is at 58.4". #30 overall.
Next up is 58.8" (1935-1936). Reaching 66.3" to make it top 20 should not be a problem.
Top 10 is at 75.8 and that looks tougher at the moment.
Geez Bill I cant even dink and dunk myself down the field for a few inches....last weekend snow fell south of the metro because the arctic dry air suppressed it south....this week snow falls north of metro yesterday and south of metro today and Fridays system is trending north...reason for no snow tonight NWS says dry air flowing in from the great lakes.....dry air is my new hated weather term, it used to be "dry tongue", must be its cousin!....arctic air releases but the snow hasn't materialized for the metro....tick tock....this week was wasted, lets see what next week brings.
ReplyDeleteAdvisories added abit further north and more west, where's Mr. Mancrush on Novak now, even Novak missed this one, hes not always right and perfect. No travel impact map put out by him or a snowfall map, his comments on Sunday was "relatively quiet over the next five days", ok so the metro doesn't see snow, but Novak doesn't just focus on the metro his maps include the entire Upper Midwest. I'm sure he will admit he missed this one!
ReplyDeleteYeah agreed! He did put out a snowfall map two hours ago, but it was already snowing.Kinda of late to the party on this one Novak, but I will give him a pass because usually he's not, most mets this winter have been late or follow Novaks lead.
DeleteQuestions for you experts:
ReplyDeleteBoth Paul Huttner and Paul Douglas often show on their blogs temperature charts from Weatherspark and they mention it is the ECMWF (European Model).
However when I go on weatherspark myself you can only select NOAA or Met.no (Norwegian model). So is it really the norwegian model they are showing and say it is ECMWF or the met.no uses the ECMWF?
Thanks!
Met.no is NOT the same as the ECMWF. Neither of the Pauls understand this. Weatherspark uses met.no (yr.no) because it's available free. ECMWF is not free.
DeleteThis is met.no's long-term forecast for MSP:
http://www.yr.no/place/United_States/Minnesota/Minneapolis/long.html
I can't believe areas just to our south got 10.5 inches of snow! That's technically more than the airport got during our last, big, storm (9.9 inches), and this one got SO little hype and talk about it.
ReplyDeleteI would've never predicted 10"+ of snow for south central MN last night. Hell, I'm still in shock given the lack of large scale dynamics. This was truly an amazing mesoscale event. Almost like forecasting T'Storms with training echoes in the heat of the summer.
ReplyDeleteQuite frankly, I was thinking at best, a 2"-4" snow over so. MN. Combine this with lack of wind, & I didn't believe it was worthy of a Travel Impact graphic. Plus, I was confident that the MSP metro would be missed.
Sometimes Mother Nature surprises us. That is why I absolutely love our atmosphere.
It was a fun storm to talk about today at St. Cloud State. Prevalent idea was the sparse upper air network just wasn't picking up how strong the dynamics were over the small area.
DeleteBill how about a new thread declaring winter over! Temps at or above 40 Sunday thru Tuesday, no snowfall predicted by any major models over the next ten days, countless meteorologists declaring no more subzero temps. Winter is dead, lets talk spring with warmer temps, rising rivers, flooded yards and chirping birds.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately you are right. I fear it may be over.
ReplyDeleteI will miss this winter for years to come. It will tough to match for any future ones.
Let's hope it is the start of a trend, by I doubt it.
Let's talk spring, with going outside, car staying in its lane, not taking 20 minutes to get my kid out of the house, no shoveling, cold season over, not wearing eight layers of clothes, not paying $200 a month to heat the house, not raking the roof, no ice dams ...want me to continue?
ReplyDeleteDon't worry Minnesotans. Only a couple months til you can start moaning about humidity and begging for snow again by Labor Day.
Reason #1001 social media might actually be the beginning of the downfall of our society: The weather isn't THAT bad, but when I read 100 tweets, posts, blogs, rants EVERY day that bitch about how bad we have it here in Minnesota, I start to actually believe them. The power of suggestion, I tell ya. In two months, everyone will be talking about how MN is the absolute best place to live on the planet. Funny how that works.
ReplyDeleteNew thread set up....
ReplyDelete