US and Great Lakes Snowfall Recap Thus Far

Snowfall across northern Ohio started out impressive in late November. More than 60"+ inches of snow fell in parts of the snowbelt. The most in parts of eastern Lake and the northern 2/3rds of Ashtabula county since the record setting lake effect event in November of 1996.

Photo: NWS Cleveland

Snow across northern Ohio and the Great Lakes started out with a bang in November and December. Here are some great images from Meteorologist Ben Noll showing snowfall vs normal by November 22 around the Great Lakes and nationally.

Snowfall vs Normal through November 22

After the big snow at the end of the month, snowfall recovered fast. Blue and Purple areas indicated WELL ABOVE seasonal snow.

Nationally through December 10:

Here is the snowfall vs normal map through December 18th:

Now snowfall vs normal through January 1st.  Notice how the departures began to drop around the Great Lakes snowbelt areas. Below normal snowfall the latter half of December.  The November snow kept the overall seasonal totals above normal.

National snowfall numbers also started to drop.

The snowfall decline accelerated in January. The snowbelts still had spots with seasonal snow above normal driven by the late November snows. Snowfall was well below normal since January. Much of the interior regions were running well below normal snowfall by early February.

The middle of the US, upper mid-west and most of the Ohio Valley was well below normal by early February.

By March 1st, the seasonal snow across the Great Lakes was almost back to normal. Snowbelt of northern Ohio, PA and western New York only slightly above due to the late November snowfall.

Seasonal snowfall across the US east of the Rocky Mountains through March 1 is characterized like this:

• Well below normal snowfall in the central US, upper mid-west, Ohio Valley including Pennsylvania, New Jersey and parts of New England.

• Slightly above normal snowfall in the Great Lakes snowbelts due to early season snow. Below normal snowfall since January 1st.

• Above normal snowfall in the south from southern Missouri, Arkansas, Kentucky and Tennessee.

• Above normal snowfall along the gulf coast due to the late January record snowfall:

Ohio and Pennsylvania snow depth animation from November 20 through March 3:

My next post will dive into northern Ohio snowfall further comparing this year to years similar

When Will This Cool/Unsettled Pattern Change?

It's not uncommon for April to feature stalled low pressure with long stretches of "cool" air across the Great Lakes/New England.  Our long stretch of warmth a few weeks ago makes this cooler/cloudy/rainy pattern that much harder to deal with.  What does the long range (2-3 week outlook) say?

The southern oscillation index went through some significant changes over the last week and a half. The greater these day-to-day changes the stronger the effect across North America, Here is the peer reviewed research:  PAPER HERE

SOI analog forecast show the Great Lakes/Eastern US trough backing off by mid month.  How quickly will the Southeast ridge build back is the big question.

Another element going forward this summer and fall will be the building El Nino. I'm not going to go into the specifics of that here. Perhaps a blog post on this in the weeks and months ahead. But as La Nina decays, the overall effects will be cascading across the Pacific augmenting the jet stream and the weather across North America.

Watch the decaying La Nina as shown through the weekly sea surface temperature anomalies from December 2022 to mid April 2023:  Watch the blue area disappear slowly.

Sea Surface Temperature Anomalies

The big drivers of the pattern change have been the ridge of high pressure in the Gulf of Alaska and the western corners of North America along, the deep low pressure over the Aleutian islands and the stalled ridge over Greenland (negative North Atlantic Oscillation). The position of these high pressure ridges have allowed low pressure to undercut them through the middle of the US. This has significantly suppressed the Bermuda high which brought us the warmth a couple weeks ago locking in below normal temperatures across the eastern 2/3 of the US.

Based upon all of these factors, I don't foresee any long stretches over warmth across the Great lakes and Ohio valley through at least the middle of May.  

The reinforcing front Sunday/Monday of next week could produce rain/snow mix.  Here was my forecast tweet from April 20 on the early May rain/snow mix potential.

As of this writing (April 25) the new EURO and GFS models show the Greenland Ridge & western North America ridge (red areas) holding strong until the second week of May then gradual weakening. This flattens the trough across the central US bringing an end to the unsettled pattern. These solutions were indicated on the SOI analogs more than a week ago.

Temperatures per the GFS also corroborate what the SOI analogs indicated 2 weeks ago.  That is gradual improvement across the central US and Ohio Valley but still no big signs of any long stretches of warmth.

Winter Snowstorm Recap MLK 2022 - Chapter 2 of 3 (Meteorology Behind It)

The seeds of this huge snowstorm were first planted around Christmas. How is possible? We started noticing signs that the HUGE ridge of high pressure in the northern Pacific was starting to move after sitting still for most of December locking in the milder pattern across the eastern US.

Watch the big red blog move northwest into eastern Siberia and north of the Arctic Circle. Low pressure centers (blue areas on the left) then could moves off of eastern Asia east undercutting the moving ridge. These lows filled the void left by the departing high pressure ridge. This animation is from December 31 to January 5. 

The overall upper level pattern starting flipping in the first week of January.  Look at the lows across the Canadian/US border. 

Animation below is from January 7 to the 14th shows a more centered view over North America. On the left side is the departing ridge (red blob). See how the low pressure centers in the northern Pacific between the Aleutian Island and Hawaii sit and build. Also notice that around January 10th a small low pressure "piece" was spun off  north of Hawaii. This was steered into the Northwest US, strengthening as it moved southeast through the upper midwest. I circled it for reference.

On Wednesday January 12 (4-5 days before the event) the long range projections were latching onto the idea that this low in the upper mid-west was heading south through Missouri then back up along the Appalachian Mountains. 

Snowfall from Wednesday January 12 through Sunday morning January 16

My first general snowfall outlook for significant snowfall was issued Thursday.  These panhandle/eastern US snow systems historically have stayed east of northern Ohio even as computer models attempt to push them west with record setting snowfalls. I remember a long range model produce 30-35 inches of snow for half of Ohio in one instance!  I was cautious to jump on the bandwagon.

 What did the long range models say regarding snowfall on Wednesday, 4+ days before the snow event?

First the American Model:

Next the Canadian Model:

The European Model:

24 hours later (Late Thursday. 3+ days before the event):

There was a discernable shift in the heavy snow into Pennsylvania and along the Ohio/PA line south into the WV panhandle.

By Saturday morning, the model output showed the heaviest snow depth still along the Ohio/PA border by early Monday afternoon.  I'm using weather.us model output maps here.

First the American model:

And the European:

The National Weather Service in Cleveland issued these winter weather advisories starting Saturday late afternoon.

Now Sunday morning's model output. First the longer range models (GFS and EURO) then the shorter term, higher resolution model output (NAM).  Each one was showing a trend further west with the 12"+ snow amounts.

GFS

EURO

NAM

NWS in Cleveland started to extend the advisories and warning further west.

The NWS continued to expand the advisory/warning areas further west Sunday evening.

The NWS snowfall forecast Sunday late afternoon/evening:

Our official FOX8 forecast from Sunday morning. Our western edge of 6-9" snow was close to I-71.

Our official FOX8 snowfall forecast issued Sunday evening. We shifted the heavier snowfall into Summit and parts of Cuyahoga Counties with the 9"+ snowfall edge near I-71.

The 12 inch snowfall forecast cut-off was shifted west slowly each day. The actual 12" amounts verified west by about 20 miles west of our final forecast

The storm prediction center highlighted heavy snow fall in their regional discussion Sunday late afternoon. Temperatures were between 25 and 30 degrees at sundown so the initial accumulations were more "sleety snow"