Chris's Corner - Bitter Cold and Some Snow

12z NAM hangs onto sub-freezing wetbulbs in the Metro until at least 3pm...the hi-res agrees with prolonged icing on the E side of the river into the afternoon.

Once 850mb temps warm above 5*C the elevated glazing should wane due to warm droplets but surface glazing may last into the evening hours. The 3k NAM holds onto freezing surface temps until after 12z Tues which is concerning with the EC showing a similar outcome.

Unfortunately, looks like that nice 00z gfs run from Friday night was a one off.

Boring weather for a while outside of the little hit of ice.

I say that, then the RAP is a similar variant

100% certainly interesting to see similar events play out from a conceptual level though. 

Looks like it will be sheared/suppressed to me, but you never know.

12z ggem has us on the western edge of a cold blast at day 10.

Gfs has it further east.

I fear we sit in the 30s-50s until the last 10 days of February.

We had our 10 days of winter. Time to shut 'er down.

Sooooo for one that gets up at 4a to work in the radio business… should we do best of shows or risk the roads and get on air come 6a Monday. I feel like the media is being conservative with wording on air this AM on all channels but here in the blog….wording is a bit stronger as models continue to get analyzed. To me, it’s not just morning drive we have to worry about but also Mondays evening commute. Just trying to plan accordingly for staff on air and off air. Thanks team. Appreciate all the knowledge.

That’s all winters are becoming around here anymore. A one to two week stretch of big time cold and some snow, and outside that mild and rainy. 

Yes if only we could take the intense 15 days we get every winter and make it a month or 2 of temps in 30s.and 20s without the damaging cold, and get snow that would be wonderful.

Also I am not happy at all about the NBM

I would venture to say that once air temps get above 30 or so.... much of the ice that is already on the ground will start to melt. The drops are falling through a HUGE warm layer aloft and only a very very shallow subfreezing air below. The fact that drop temperatures may be several degrees above freezing... and we are looking at a daylight event by that time...should all conspire to accelerate the surface melting. The exceptions will be bridges/overpasses and places that do not receive sunlight/shaded areas (north facing sides of trees?)

That is a question only you can answer. What is your driving skill? How comfortable are you driving on potentially icy roads? Forecasters can handle the forecast, but we can't tell people whether or not they should cancel plans or not travel. In rare instances, it may be obvious, but most of the time it is not. Those are personal safety decisions that need to be made by the person that is affected. I can give you the weather forecast, you need to decide what that means for you and your staff... or students, etc.

I don't see this event as needing dire warnings or "bread and milk" attention. It does warrant a high level of awareness for late tonight and during the morning. We've been talking about it since last week as having a likely impact on the morning drive. I don't see how anyone will be caught by suprise (although some always say they are). The morning will be rough... no questions about that... but I have my doubts that anyone in metro STL will still be dealing with impactful icing much past early afternoon.

Thank you sir.

This discussion our winters are so much different than past is very overblown and old. We will and always have had winters with seesaw temps. Yes the few have been warmer but nothing historically that hasn’t happened prior.

If the cold air remains stubborn, I could see some >0.25" glazing but I'd say those kind of outputs aren't handling the microphysics well...warm hydrometeors, latent heat, drag, etc.