Chris's Corner - Valentines Day Week 2022

it sure would be nice if the rgem was right.

The rgem has about 1.0" QPF for 44/64 while temps are in the low to upper 20s.

Probably a lot of sleet, graupel, snow

Gem still way south and way colder, hammers the whole metro area with ice and snow

Looks like the ukmet is a bit north, but still well south of the gfs.

Kind of riding the middle ground with the euro.

Would be really nice from St. Charles on north.

The crazy thing is not a single GEFS member gives support to the further south camp. They are all almost mirror images of each other. That’s some consistency.

I said a bit, meaning slight. You can see it at hour 60 where the low is a touch stronger and at the Arkansas/Missouri border whereas on the 12z run the low was south of the border.

It could be noise or it could be the start of a trend north.

With the way the GFS sand GEFS look I would be shocked if they go way back south at this point, you’ve basically seen the other models slowly trend towards the GFS. I still think it’s probably two amped up but that might just be me wish casting it down 50-75 miles.

I'm glad I didn't get too invested in the system this week. I've checked in a couple of times the last few days but just been out of touch really. Not even sure why I'm telling you all this, lol.

Looks like it's still nothing super major. Rain with a bit of sleet/freezing rain and/or snow at the tail.

.LONG TERM... (Wednesday Night through Monday)
Issued at 417 AM CST Tue Feb 15 2022

Several key messages with the storm Wednesday into Thursday. Ahead
of the front there will be to potential for locally heavy rainfall
during the period as widespread 1-2+ inches of rain is likely with
the heaviest amounts along I-44 in Missouri and I-70 in Illinois.
Then a front will move from northwest to southeast across the area
late Wednesday night causing the rain to change to freezing
rain/sleet and then to accumulating snow. There remains a great
deal of uncertainty in the exact track of the storm, but the most
likely location to see accumulating wintry precipitation continues
to be central and northeast Missouri as well as west central
Illinois.

Latest runs of the GFS, ECWMF, and the NAM as well as the GEFS and
EPS all are showing that an upper low will drop into the southwest
CONUS by Wednesday morning at the same time that a northern stream
shortwave trough will drop into the northern High Plains. The NAM,
GFS, and ECMWF are all are showing a lead shortwave ejecting out of
the southwestern low and phasing with the northern stream trough
which ultimately causes the surface low to deepen as it moves
through the Midwest on Thursday. The main difference is the ECMWF
and NAM have a slightly farther south track than the GFS. The
latest WPC Cluster Analysis is showing more of the ensemble members
favoring the southern track.

Still expect the precipitation to start off as all rain over the
northwestern half of the CWA on Wednesday morning as increased mid
level ascent and low level moisture transport increases across the
area. The rain will spread southeast through the day and there may
be some locally heavy rainfall ahead of the front on Wednesday night
as PWATS increase over 1". In addition, there will be a chance of
thunderstorms over much of the southern half of the area as MUCAPES
will be up to 500 J/kg.

Then the focus switches to winter weather part of the system.
A combination of strong mid level frontogenesis and a coupled jet
will set up continued sustained lift Wednesday night into Thursday.
Forecast soundings and plumes still favor rain changed to narrow
band of mixed precipitation before changing to snow ahead of the low
that will quickly move through the area on Thursday. The latest
model runs are now showing a deformation zone on Thursday which will
keep snow going into the afternoon. The greatest uncertainty will
continue to be with the snow amounts as ice/sleet amounts will take
away from the snow on Wednesday night and the track of the system is
still not clear. This is causing the wide range in the possible
snow over northeast Missouri and west central Illinois.

It still looks like Friday into Monday will be dry as a low amplitude
ridge and large surface high moves across the area. Temperatures on
Thursday will be much colder behind the front, but will moderate
over the weekend depending initially on how much snow cover there is.

Britt

Bailing on my earlier thoughts of a southward placement of track of surface low. Attm, i see potential for advisory level event in warren and lincoln counties and points nw of that. Only light wintry potential for metro proper and it will be confined as tail end stuff. Lots of unhappiness on this board as we experience the st louis classic.

No my hopes for the southern solution are pretty much over. 6 z RGEM shifted north quite a bit , takes the majority of the accumulation snow out of the metro.

Bring on the heavy rain - let's get all this crap washed off of the cars and roads.

There are some pretty strong signals starting to build for a potentially major overunning event mid to late next week. Taking into consideration the models' bias of not pushing the shallow arctic air south fast enough makes this a potentially interesting setup that bears watching.

Yeah. Euro has a pretty wicked ice storm here later next week

12z nam and FV3 are both amped and north.