West Lafayette, Indiana Wednesday afternoon (Daily Mail)
A mild, if not warm first 15-18 days of December meant snowcover was minimal and in fact on the 6th it was at a scant 6% and well below normal. While many struggled to believe winter would ever come, the pattern began to change towards the 17-18th and with 7 days before Christmas, the snowpack grew to 33%.
A colder pattern began to kick in about 8 days prior to Christmas meant the active Pacific storm track would start shifting further and further south as arctic air, which had been bottled up across Canada started to head south as a blocking high setup over Hudson Bay, a favourable position. As the dam began to break open, the Pacific storm track remained very active but crucially started to undercut the southbound cold air. The first storm struck the Northern Tier, replenishing the snowcover across Montana, the Dakotas, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan, then the second struck the Lower Midwest early this week bringing a band of heavy snow from the Southern Rockies, across the Central Plains to Great Lakes and Interior Northeast.
[s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level1)]
The last system, which is now exiting after bringing over a foot of snow to the mountains of the Northeast and New England, crossed the Southern Plains and brought an unusual white Christmas to Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas. It also brought a blizzard to the Lower Midwest with 18 inches tallied in southern Illinois.
Little Rock, AR saw 9 inches of snow by the end of Christmas Day, making this the snowiest Christmas since 1939. In Indianapolis, IN, 7.5 inches fell which made for the largest snowstorm in 4 years here. 12+ inches of snow fell in the mountains of the Northeast and even for Philadelphia and New York we saw a coating within the city to several inches to the north and west.
The three major snowstorms in the past 8 days has risen the nations snowcover to an impressive 65%, a 10 fold increase in just 3 weeks. This, according to Eric Fisher of TWC is the larger than greatest extent of snowcover all of last winter.
The next system arrives later tomorrow into Saturday and it looks like the coastal Northeast may get in on several inches of snow, so yet more coverage looks likely.
New post coming later. Stay tuned.
[/s2If][s2If current_user_is(s2member_level0)]
Join a subscription plan, [s2Get constant=”S2MEMBER_CURRENT_USER_DISPLAY_NAME” /]!
[warning]You do not have a valid subscription to access premium content exclusive to members. You will need to join a subscription plan if you would like to continue.[/warning][/s2If][s2If !is_user_logged_in()]
Sign in to read the full forecast…
Not yet a member? Start your 7 day free trial
Create your free markvoganweather.com account today to get unlimited access to Mark Vogan’s premium articles, video forecasts and expert analysis for 7 days.
[/s2If]
Recent Comments