Major Winter Storm to impact Southern Michigan, Ontario

For many folks in Southern Ontario and the Toronto region, the title may seem foreign to you. But I assure you, this is not a joke. A major winter storm will develop in the western Great Lakes, moving eastward before transitioning to a major northern New England storm.

A weak surface wave is currently developing the Great Plains, associated with a weak northern stream energy. This surface wave will track across the Ohio Valley region and into western Pennsylvania, which is an ideal setup for heavy snow across Central Michigan and Southern Ontario.

Most models are now in agreement of roughly 3-6" for Detroit, with 6-12" to the north of there. For the majority of Southern Ontario, I'm currently expecting 7-14", with totals being the highest near Lake Ontario. This will be a major winter storm event, and a seemingly rare one for areas like Toronto, which has essentially had a snow drought since the great winter of 2007-2008.

I will provide an update at least once or twice tomorrow as details become more clear, but at this time I feel very confident that Toronto will get at least 6" of snowfall from this storm.

Stay tuned folks, as many of you are in for a wild ride Friday morning

Snowfall this Weekend

While much of the area is experiencing the coldest temperatures of the season so far, snow is making its way through the Western Great Lakes. This snow will struggle to reach the ground this far east today, and minimal accumulations are expected in Ohio. However, another round of snow will make its way through the Ohio Valley and Eastern Lakes before becoming a light to moderate snowfall along the East Coast.

An open wave will work its way through the Mississippi Valley, with a very weak surface reflection across the Ohio Valley. Precipitation is now modeled to move across all of Ohio, parts of SEMI and eventually the Toronto area. While this storm will produce light precipitation compared to the Boxing Day Storm, due to cold temperatures, high snow ratios will dominate the event, which will make the most out of the precipitation that will fall. There are discrepancies between the NWS offices and HPC, as well as local media outlets. From what I have seen today, the models are generally painting 2-4" across Ohio. The latest ECMWF shows slightly higher amounts then what the NAM/GFS show in NWOH. This still falls in the range of 2-4", with more towards the I-70 corridor. This makes sense due to the best lift located towards the center of the state, as shown below.

UPDATE: 10:20pm:
Not much has changed in the past few hours. A heavy snow band has set up near Indianapolis extending northeast towards Lima. Generally it appears that there will be two different areas of higher snow totals... one extending from Indy to NWOH, while the other, heavier snow area will be near the Ohio River valley running ENE through Pennsylvania. For now I'm staying with lower totals, but based on reports back towards Indiana where that band set up, I could easily see some locations approaching 5-7" or so due to localized banding which set up earlier.

Post Christmas Snowstorm

While most of the time, Christmas and the days following are usually a tranquil time for enjoying the holidays, it appears that for many in the Great Lakes, a major storm will be disrupting many post Christmas plans. This storm has been on the radar for most meteorologists and weather enthusiasts. While significant differences between the models currently exists, I have delayed posting about this for long enough. For those looking for snow maps, I will not be posting an actual snow map today. I'm going to wait until late tomorrow or Christmas evening, depending on if the models come to a consensus in the next 24-48 hours.

This storm has a similar setup to the previous storm that ended up turning into a blizzard for the western Lakes. However, there are several differences between these two storms. ECMWF Ens. 500mb Height Anomalies:

 As you can see, a large trough develops over the central CONUS and eventually becomes negatively tilted as it crosses the Mississippi River by Christmas. The models agree on a very strong block to the west of Greenland, which helps keep this storm from cutting west into Michigan. There are several differences especially between the NAM and ECMWF in how each model handles the H5 low... with neither side really caving towards the other. The ECMWF is now on the southern side of the guidance and the NAM still leaning on the north side. For now, most NWS offices as well as the HPC have basically blended all guidance favoring a ECM Ensembles and GFS Ensembles blend. This puts the heaviest snow axis from Southwest Indiana to Southeast Michigan and into most of Southern Ontario.

At this time there is a high probability that some areas of Indiana/Ohio/Michigan and Ontario will get 6" or more. Toronto has consistently been progged to get more than 6-12" of snow from essentially every model... and I feel confident that this will be the storm that finally puts a dent in the snow drought seen in Toronto over the last couple years. 

Once again I am constantly on the chat bar on the right side of the blog and will be updating as much as I can between now and Wednesday... but due to the Christmas coming up, I will not be on here as much as I would like to be.