A tad chilly

At the start of today the Soo's snowfall total was 54.4 inches, but we're in the midst of a 2-day lake effect snow warning that may add 10-12 inches by late afternoon tomorrow. Depending on what Syracuse is up to, the Soo may top them by the end of the week. Of course, only 100,000+ populations make that list in Joseph's post . . .

Well, it is a very large one.

  Hmm, it's been awhile since I've checked to see what the weather has been like in Siberia.

  Brrrrr...CP weather x 4!   

   The news had something about an icicle in Russia being so big, they had to chop at it for four hours to bring it down off the side of a building because it was too dangerous to let it fall off on its own.

  Did the total from the lake effect put you over Syracuse on the snowboard?

Some yutz lost control on ice on U.S. 31 yesterday, crossed the oncoming lanes, and ended up parked in Grand Traverse Bay (i.e., Lake Michigan). The report said he stayed in the car until rescue crews donned ice suits and hauled him out.

if he needs some r & r to recover from the incident, they should tell him to come down here and swim with the 'gators.

Yeesh. When I arrived at WalMart a little after 9:00 this morning the temperature was (-8)°F [-22°C] . I was there primarily to pick up two prescriptions for my mother, and I was kicking myself the whole time I was outside for not telling her to get her own damn pills. She's still only 79-- she can probably handle the cold.

 No, as it turned out. The Soo's total for the 2-3 days was only 7 or 8 inches, which is about half of what fell here at the Phailure Ranch, less than 20 miles to the west. It's a good example of how the lake effect snow is often so banded, with narrow bands at high angles to the coast. Sometimes the bands can be only 5 to 10 miles wide, and the snow might be coming down at 2 inches per hour within each of two bands 10 miles apart and halfway in between nothing will be falling.

 You can experience that on short drives along the coast, like from here to the Soo, passing into and out of heavy snowfall along the way. It's obvious from the amounts of new snow alongside the road whether you've entered a persistent band or just a momentary flurry. Here are a couple examples of lake effect snow banding on ground radar and from orbit (different weather events in the two images).

Here's my first seasonal snow update. As of yesterday the Soo is running just a bit more than 8 inches above "normal" for the season-to-date snowfall, with 65.9 inches. You can see from the monthly data lines (cyan = actual month-to-date; olive = normal month-to-date) that December more than made up for a slow start to the season.

haha! in the areas surrounding the lakes, i have rarely seen anything that would be considered normal.

average snow and temps are that-average. one day could have snow and the next, balmy skies.

i refuse to believe any forecast there. while the midwest weather can be predictable, there are times when blizzards, tornados, or, great spring weather is upon you!

I think the 1- and 2-day forecasts for this area are quite good. With large bodies of water at different temperature located in the common directions of weather system approach, they often need to project the track of a system center within a few (directional) degrees to correctly assign locations of snow vs. freezing rain vs. rain even 8 hours later. You don't often hear anymore about things like school buses having trouble even getting kids home because weather deteriorated faster than expected.

Speaking of longer-term forecasts, we may be looking at a week's worth of highs above freezing starting Monday or Tuesday.

In a little over 8 hours the Soo Locks will close for the season. The scheduled date to open is March 25.

A total of 3.3 million tons of cargo moved through the locks in 2016. That's a decrease of 4.5% from 2015. However, iron ore shipments for the year totaled 44.1 million tons, up almost 8% over the 2015 haul.

Lots of lock maintenance gets done over the winter. They need to make sure the Poe Lock stays operational since it's the only one that can handle the large ore carriers. The need for a second lock of that size has been talked about at all levels of the Government for years, but the cash hasn't been appropriated. It's not exactly a minor problem-- a Department of Homeland Security analysis early last year projected that a 6-month breakdown of the Poe Lock would result in a national recession with a total loss of 11 million jobs. It would only take a few weeks of no iron ore shipments to stop almost all production of autos, farm machinery, construction equipment, rail cars, mining equipment, and appliances.

SpaceX had a good day yesterday heh.?  A flawless takeoff and landing with 10 separate satellites.   Touche!  Good for them.   

Not much sunlight ahead for this area. The grey zone/line is the forecast cloud cover percentage. Starting sometime tonight the projected cloud clover reaches essentially 100% and stays there for 5 straight days and nights! Even looking at the next 4 days beyond that there are only 2 brief periods when the model puts the cloud cover below 75%.

In Post #3210 a week ago I mentioned the Soo Locks closing for the season. Here's a shot of the final ship through the locks-- the Presque Isle locked through headed downbound about an hour before the closure deadline.

The Presque Isle is one of the "thousand footers" on the Great Lakes. It can carry more than 50,000 tons of cargo if the waters where it's going are deep enough.

  Do they continue to ship some of the ore by rail during the winter?

  Anchorage Alaska made a bit of a jump on the list.  Billings and Boise are also getting a fair amount more than their usual.

shit. looking at multiple tornadoes. and moving fast. going offline. wish me luck. 

forgive me for my last post. storms producing tornadoes were all around me. 

i was lucky to be in a corridor between them. some around me weren't so lucky.

the storms in my area were moving between 60-90 mph.