Weekend Storm + Winter Lesson

First, a final update on the weekend winter storm.  When all was said and done, we got about 6 inches of snow and 1/4" ice.  It snowed from about 10am Saturday through about 1:45 or 2:00, and then it was ice pellets/sleet until about 4:30ish.  From 4:30 til 10, it was ice (with it trying to change to rain by 10pm).  Then overnight, it was mostly just sprinkles.  We woke up Sunday morning with temps around 35 and a little rain.  By noon it was below freezing and spitting crap outside.  My doggies really don’t like the snow outside this time around.  Sammie usually loves the snow and Maxie is usually indifferent these days (there was a time when she really liked it too), but they hate this stuff.  See, we have all that snow, but there’s also a good layer of ice on top so the dogs don’t know from one step to the next if they’re going to be walking on top of the snow of if they’ll fall through.  Needless to say, after Saturday afternoon, we haven’t had too many issues getting Sammie inside.  To give you an idea of what this storm did…I believe there were some 100,000 people without power in IL from the storm and around 15,000 people without power in IA.  From about Appleton, WI northward, they got lots of snow.  Greenbay was forecast to get around 8 inches, while Eau Claire was forecast to get 8-12. 

This storm was really bizarre.  It’s not the type of storm we usually get around here at any time of year.  Here are the different types/scenarios we usually have for winter storms around here:

• Temps are just above freezing as the storm starts to move through.  Precipitation starts as rain and slowly (or quickly, sometimes) changes to snow as the storm moves through and pulls down the cold air behind it.  That kind of storm tends to dump the heavy wet snow.  We can get lots of snow or just a little snow from this kind of system
• A low pressure system moves through when temps are below about 25 degrees F.  In that situation, we don’t usually get much snow as the air is too cold to hold the moisture. 
• A common type of storm: A clipper moves through from Canada.  Essentially, a weak to moderate low pressure system comes out of Canada and gets caught in the jetstream.  More often than not, we don’t get too much snow out of these kinds of systems – no more than 4 inches usually.  Also, the snow that falls doesn’t tend to be good for snowmen, snow forts, or snowballs.  Typically, after the storm moves through, very cold Canadian air fills in behind it.
• The other common type of storm: A low-very strong low pressure system comes ashore somewhere from northern CA to WA and essentially marches towards the Great Lakes.  How much snow we get is determined entirely by the degree to which the system can tap into moisture from the Gulf of Mexico.  If the system cannot tap into gulf moisture, we don’t get much snow.  If the system does tap into the gulf, however, anything can happen.  Many times, we’ll again see cold Canadian air fill in behind the storm.

It’s not uncommon either for us to have more than one of the above scenarios at a time.  More often than not, when we get a system that moves through (drops at least 2 or 3 inches of snow) we’ll also get winds and cold Canadian air after the system moves through.  The interesting thing is that the storm system we had this weekend is the kind we don’t usually see.  This storm came ashore in southern CA and pulled a lot of moisture from the Pacific Ocean, in addition to warm air.  So when the storm started, we had all the cold air in place. Then the storm came and pulled in warm air above the cold surface air.  That led to the icing across the area (and the country).  Temperatures warmed up as the warm air pushed the cold air out of the way.  As the storm then moved on, it sucked cold air behind it.  To give you an example, Chicago had temperatures around freezing, to just above freezing on Saturday – just cold enough/warm enough to cause a huge mess of precipitation.  Their high yesterday (Sunday) was 49.  Their high today is in the mid 20’s.  That’s not the kind of roller coaster we see this time of year (or any time of year really – at least not that fast.  Spring and fall we’ll see several days of one temperature group, then several days of a different temperature group, etc – but it certainly doesn’t change as fast as it did this time).  I wish now I knew what kind of system hit us last February.  It’d be interesting to look at it because it dumped a LOT of snow here.  From about 8pm Friday night through 8am Monday morning, we had around 20 or 21 inches of new snow on the ground.  Friday night into Saturday we got about 7 inches of snow (initially, we were supposed to get 1-3), then Saturday afternoon through Sunday morning we got another foot or so, and then the rest late Sunday afternoon through Monday morning…

Winter in the Midwest is always an adventure!