So yes, last weekend’s snow in the western suburbs was a surprise.* That said, the coming 7-10 days have a much more pronounced pattern. The details are sketchy at this distance but it is going to be snowy and it is going to be cold.
Some flurries or light snow today will give way to slightly better conditions tomorrow, but temps will struggle to get out of the 20s or low 30s at any point. Outdoor hockey rinks will have ideal conditions to get established for the season.
On Saturday afternoon/evening we’ll have the first of several chances at snow. Again, details are tough at this point, but a few inches of snow is certainly possible through Sunday morning.
On Sunday night and potentially into Monday morning it gets even more interesting. One model (and the good one, no less) has picked up a potentially major snow storm. That model is an outlier and it is very early, but we’ll have to watch this one closely.
Either way, the odds strongly favor at least a few inches of weekend snow followed by a blast of bitterly cold air in the middle of next week. It looks likely that we’ll go near or below zero at night on one or two occasions next week, with some marginal relief after that. The good news is that the mid-range forecast (i.e., 2-3 weeks) shows a milder pattern coming back into control. But for now winter is really locked in for at least the next 10-14 days.
TSkillz/WGN:
* The snow that fell on Sunday was a surprise to me and most forecasters/models. The available moisture looked limited to 0.10-0.20 inches but in reality the storm pulled in 0.5 to as much as 0.7 inches in a few spots. That is a massive difference for a storm like that, although the point should not be lost that a third to a half an inch of rain really isn’t a lot and would have gone unnoticed had it fallen as rain. It’s also worth noting that the first snow system of any season often produces a perceived “bust” because the warm ground limits accumulations even if everything else verifies in the atmosphere. In any case, the storm’s lift was also more impressive than expected, enabling snowfall rates that overwhelmed the very warm ground and relatively mild surface temps that were at or above freezing. The precip also persisted for several hours longer than anticipated, allowing the snow to really pile up in a few place. And this was also one for the record books – we had had only a trace of snow coming into this storm, and the 6.4” at ORD and 5.5” at MDW set the record for the biggest-ever first measurable snowfall of the year. So this was a unique storm to say the least. The snow did not, however, accumulate meaningfully in the city near Lake Michigan. So while people in the western suburbs probably see this is as blown forecast, that’s only partially accurate. The forecast did fail to project the moisture content, but that happens – nothing is certain. Given the other variables involved (and the verified result in the city/lakeshore areas), I would view this as a moderate disappointment. If the odds – across the whole area -- called for an 80% chance of little/no accumulation, that means that 20% of the time (or over 20% of the area) there would in fact be meaningful snow. So even though I wish the forecast had been better and more helpful than it was, that is life – situations like this are going to happen.
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