Tuesday March 22nd, 2011 11:51pm Update
Greetings and welcome!
11:51
THUNDERSNOW!!
11pm
WOW!
It is snowing harder than I have seen it snow in a long long time. It is really coming down and there is plenty of wind moving it around.
Looking at the radar this is an impressive storm. There is a lot of yellow and orange on the radar out in western WI and a good bit moving through the center of the state. As this crosses the rain snow line we are getting some seriously heavy snow.
The moisture root line of storms supporting the snow is huge and powerful, and has caused a good bit of severe weather already. Much of SE MN is under flood watches or warnings. As this feeds wave after powerful wave into the cold side of the storm it will really add up fast.
Right now the rain snow goes about from Green Bay to Wausau to the Twin Cities. Just north of that line they are just getting pounded with snow. Some of the heavier waves with yellow, orange and red on the radar have to be causing thunder snow.
One dynamic that was off in my predictions was the wet heavy snow. It is a little wet but it is not sloppy. At that point the inches of snow to inches of water shoots up, I am guessing to maybe 12 or 14:1. With the higher multiplier, the snow will indeed pile up.
With the really fast rate that the snow is falling and the strength of the wind blowing it around, travel has to be just about impossible.
As of 11:15 there are about 2″ down here.
10:15pm
It’s snowing now!
It was a long wait, but here we are. It has to be near blizzard conditions out there. We have less than 1/2″ of snow but it is coming pretty fast and flying sideways. Travel would not be fun right now.
5:15pm
The snow has been falling on radar since late morning. It has not been hitting the ground here yet. About 4 I drove through some that was just getting started on the east side of Silver Cliff. A look around outside finds a few flakes down but not many, and nothing falling.
The forecast for a lot of snow tonight still holds with the NWS and TV forecasters. The latest from the TV shows us in for about a foot on channel 2 and 14+ on Channel 11. Fourteen plus!? Yowza.
The NAM model would support that with us in the 1-1.25″ or 1.25-1.5″ band. The GFS is only showing us getting 0.5-0.75″, and the HPC has us in the 1-1.25″ band.
There is a heavy band crossing about the 3 states area where IA, MN and WI borders meet, and another one behind it. The closer one has thunderstorms, and the second line has tornado warnings in IA. Those are expected to come our way, as snow. That is where the heavy stuff was/is expected.
And now we wait. I will check back later.
RJB
Late Morning Update
Virtually every bit of guidance that I have says that we are going to get spanked pretty good by this snowstorm. The NWS is loking for 6-10 tonight and another 2-4 tomorrow, and they are warning that it looks like it will be 8-14″ of wet heavy snow. The TV is showing 7.6″ in Atigo, 12.1 around Crivitz and Marinette, and get this, 18″ up by Iron Mountain and northern Marinette Co.
As of 11am the radar shows it snowing here but the ground truth doesn’t match up. So far it is only snowing on radar. The atmosphere will saturate soon enough and the snow will make it to the ground eventually.
It looks pretty likely that it will get here since it is knocking on the door. You might want to be ready to be not traveling for a day, and the heavy snow will likely take down branches and power lines. While I am not so sure about the 14 and 18″ numbers, power outages and ugly travel could still happen if we see 6-10 and high winds tonight.
More to follow…
RJB