We had a sloppy mess here yesterday in Otsego with freezing rain and sleet to start the festivities then less than an inch of snow to cover that. The storm system that generated the snow, sleet, and freezing rain on Thursday will continue to pull away from the region today. It will be slick to start the day so plan accordingly if you will be traveling. An area of high pressure will move in for tonight into Saturday leading to dry conditions. Temperatures will rebound tomorrow with sunshine. Our next system moves in for Monday night starting an active period for most of next week with periods of rain and snow.
Grand Rapids Forecast
2 17 grrLansing Forecast
2 17 lanKalamazoo Forecast
2 17 kzoForecast Discussion
-- Cold Friday, A Little Lake Effect Snow -- The best dendritic snow aggregates of the whole event in the southern half of the L.P. are moving east with the 700 mb trough as the low-level cyclone departs the region. In its wake will be northerly low-level flow and 850 mb temperatures around -14 C today. Looks like we may mix as high as 850 mb and this would yield highs in the mid 20s... our first entirely below-freezing calendar day in two weeks. Lake effect snow may clip western parts of Mason and Oceana counties for much of the day, so those will be the only two counties we`ll leave in the winter wx advisory until 7 AM while canceling the rest. There could be a couple inches of additional fluff in Mason/Oceana during the day. Winds turning more northwest then west this afternoon will nudge the lake effect snow showers inland during the afternoon. However, the snow showers will be subdued over land by increasingly dry air and ridging that will strengthen the inversion at the top of the boundary layer around 850 mb. -- Warming and Mostly Dry Weekend -- Milder air from what used to be a Pacific Northwest region ridge will advect back in and rebound our temperatures above freezing for the weekend. The GFS and ECMWF are producing light precipitation Sunday morning from a southern stream shortwave trough moving through the flow but there have been few other models that show this, perhaps dry air being the limiting factor. Sunday night there may also be light precipitation, especially north, from a northern stream shortwave trough and cold front. -- Potentially Active Setup For The Week Ahead -- Next week will by characterized as having a higher degree of south- to-north baroclinicity across the CONUS than usual, as a lobe of the tropospheric polar vortex and its associated cold air sags toward south-central Canada, and a sprawling Bermuda High advects warmer air toward the Gulf of Mexico coast. As a result a zonal upper-level jet streak will strengthen across the central CONUS by Tuesday. Another shortwave trough in the northern stream flow, an Alberta clipper, may produce an inch or two of snow Monday night. In the southern stream, a cutoff low hanging out off the coast of California/Baja will get kicked toward the central US as a deep Rossby wave trough amplifies over the western US Tuesday-Wednesday. It`s this Baja low getting reintroduced into the westerlies over the central US and chased by an ejecting shortwave trough from western US that, if it were to occur, would realize the high degree of baroclinic instability via cyclogenesis over the Midwest/Great Lakes Wednesday to Thursday. Recent runs of the deterministic ECMWF and GFS have been flashy with advertising potentially heavy rain, freezing rain, sleet, and snow across Michigan late Wednesday into Thursday. Ensembles are clustering around this idea, though there remains a good deal of spread in both QPF and where the surface front and its steep temperature gradient will be located. QPF over an inch, while concerning in a mixed precip scenario, is currently at the higher end of the range of solutions for any given location in our area. The median QPF is closer to a half inch among the ECMWF ensemble.
Hard to measure the snow we got due to it blowing around, but it looks to be 5″. No ice thankfully, we were probably just north of that line. But the roads were still bad during yesterday evening and this morning commutes.
Geomagnetic storm watch out, good chance of seeing the Northern Lights tonight or tomorrow if we can get some clear skies.
https://spaceweather.com/
First contact is expected to produce a minor G1-class geomagnetic storm, intensifying to moderate G2-class storming on Feb. 18th. During such storms, auroras can spill into the United States as far south as New York and Idaho.
Thanks for the heads up.. pretty cloudy though
The forecast low for GR tonight is 17 degrees and the high tomorrow will be in the mid 30’s, so not only will all the snow not melt it will be a great day to enjoy winter in MI! Snowshoe, ski, etc, etc! Incredible! Winter is awesome!
Took about 15 minutes to chisel the ice off my daughters car, could hardly get the doors open. That’s the thickest ice I’ve seen in a long time. About 2 or 3 inches of snow but that should be mostly gone again tomorrow with temps in the mid 40’s.
Next weeks storm system bears close watching. It’s been showing up for quite some time in modeling. No way to know at this stage what precip type it will be.
You know it and this could be another big snow maker! No, winter is not over and surely not dead! Too funny!
Well today is day 3 or 4 depending of my COVID infection depending on how one interprets the so called guidelines. I have not gone out to measure the snow fall here but looking out the windows it looks like around 4”. At Grand Rapids the official H/L yesterday was 37/22 there was 0.63” of precipitation of that 1.8” was reported as snow fall. As freezing rain, sleet and snow all fell. There was no sunshine. The overnight low here at my house is the current reading of 18. For today the average H/L is now up to 34/20 the… Read more »
How are you feeling Slim? Hope it is getting better.
And Slim, how is your better half doing?
So far we are both having cold like symptoms, with a low grade fever that comes and goes. Still kind of tired with chills. The cough also comes and goes. The fever is around 100.5 or so. Will take this one day at a time for now.
Slim
I’ve had minor cold/flu symptoms the past couple of days as well. Seems like everyone is getting sick. Might be best to avoid crowds the next few weeks
Hope you both feel better soon!!
Greatstorm, about 4 to. 5 inches of fresh snow and great outdoor winter sports conditions today and tomorrow! It is great to see winter is back and we will have many more weeks of winter weather! Get prepared now and ignore all of the false warm weather hype on here!
Here’s a quick recap of what happened here last night. Quick because it didn’t last long, but it was impressive. As I mentioned, we received significant rainfall during the evening commute, but the temp at the time was 29 so we knew it would transition at any moment. Mother Nature flipped the switch and the rain instantly changed to small diameter sleet and the ground and streets quickly turned white. Over the next couple of hours, we had light sleet off and on. Then at 8p, the skies opened up. It was pouring rock salt. It was roaring in our… Read more »
Nice update.
Slim
Thanks for the update.
More sleet than snow. The snow is pretty crunchy. Sloppy mess and melting this weekend.
Looks like about 4″ of sleet and snow here in my yard.
Slim
What a storm! We got plastered with snow! Skiing here I come! Who wouldn’t want snow this time of year! Winter is awesome baby!