Sunday's Storm, what happened?

[DFarver]

John,

I was watching this storm all day, and it seemed like the snow fell in the Dakotas and Minnesota, much more so than predicted, but then everythign just kind of fell apart towards the evening. What ended up happening, did it run out of moisture?

Seemed like it just dumped on the one area and then fell apart.

Hopeful for some LES this week!

Dane

 

[jd]

Well, a couple of things.

1st, the storm packed more punch than was anticipated as is swung through SD and MN, which resulted in the heavier than anticipated snow in those areas. Then the upper air energy with the system swung further east, rather than north and east, which caused the system to strengthen as it headed into the eastern Midwest and east coast states. That robbed areas like northern WI and the UP of much of the snow they were suppose to see.

In my text last week, the models were actually handling the surface features pretty well, it was the mid and upper air dynamics (and resultant precip) that just kind of looked a bit out of whack and I even eluded to that in my text write ups. With that said though, the models were very consistent in their ideas of the band of heavier snow in the UP and far northern WI, right up until the storm was already going full steam in SD and MN and only hours away from pulling it's miss on north central WI and most of the UP. As a meteorologist with a few years under his belt, I can spot things that just do not look right or probably better put, unusual. That is what caused me to make mention of it in my text last week. However, when they are all indicating the same thing, it is foolish to go against them all and is why all forecasts were the same and all bombed in the same manner.

-John

 

[DFarver]

Thanks for the info John. I was just curious what happened. It seemed as though the storm fooled everyone, weather channel folks included.

Love the site, keep up the great work!