Wow...what a crazy week it has been. The storm that was advertised by the forecast models for several day, and was mentioned in my previous post, actually came through pretty much as planned. This was a powerful winter storm that affected a very large portion of the United States, with the most significant impact in the higher terrain Colorado, northern Kansas, south central and southeast Minnesota, and pretty much all of Iowa and Wisconsin. The system came ashore in Southern California, trekked east through the four corners region then southeast through the Texas panhandle to eastern Oklahoma, before making a hook towards the northeast through eastern Illinois, to the southern tip of Lake Michigan, before exiting up into Canada. Systems that take this particular track are typically known as a "Panhandle Hooker" or "Texas Panhandler" due to their origination in the Texas Panhandle, then a sharp turn or "hook" towards the northeast. Think of these systems as a giant bucket, scooping up a lot of moisture from the Gulf of Mexico, and carrying it north. That is exactly what this system did, and was truly a classic winter storm. There was plenty of moisture, and plenty of cold air for it to be all snow. Below are three sets of maps. The top one shows the approximate path the storm took along with snow totals. The middle one is also snow totals, but with a closer look into the area. The bottom one is the low track, along with the millibar numbers. This system bottomed out at 976mb, which is quite impressive.
Snow was not the only issue with this system. Strong winds behind it whipped up the very light, fluffy snow, creating blizzard conditions across a large part of southern Minnesota and western Wisconsin. The highest gust reported was in Blue Earth, MN with a gust of 54mph. The winds also created very cold wind chills, as well as drifting snow, which made measurements difficult. The highest amount reported to the NWS in Chanhassen, MN was 13.3 inches in Zumbrota, MN in Goodhue Co., with Eau Claire, WI coming in a close second with 13.1 inches reported. Below is an animation of the storm, from start to finish. You can see how far north the precip made it, even when the center of the storm was well down to the south, and then see it as it deepens (strengthens) as it moves northeast. A typical sign of a storm strengthening is the isobars around the low tighten up, and create almost a spider web look to them.
Now, onto the next system that looks to affect central/southern Minnesota and west central Wisconsin. A low pressure system looks to come ashore in northern California, dip south towards Colorado (named a Colorado Low), then head north east towards Chicago. A band of accumulating snow appears likely over the areas mentioned above, with 2-4..perhaps even 5 inches of snow possible, if rain:snow ratios can get to be high enough, or if a bit more moisture can be tapped from the Gulf. In fact, even as I was putting this blog together, the National Weather Service issued a Winter Weather Advisory for pretty much the entire area Chanhassen covers, as well as a small portion that La Crosse covers. The counties in the advisory are shaded below. Expect the snow to begin late Sunday night, and last through the night into Monday morning. Many should expect a slow commute back to work on Monday. The HPC also highlighted an area, also shown in the map below, that has a low risk (10%) of seeing 4 or more inches of snow. It is the area that is to the south of the northern line, and to the north of the southern line (I hope that makes sense). If you're not a fan of the snow or cold, well, sorry. The snow looks to be around up through Christmas, as well as do the colder temps.
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