Ice Storm Pictures

Here are northern Kentucky ice storm pictures. The ice storm was followed by 3 inches of snow. Credit goes to my former intern and now weatherguy in Bowling Green Kentucky and his father.

Snow...Let it End...Snowfall totals right now are about 5.7" at Fort Wayne Airport. In other areas south of Fort Wayne the heaviest snowfall we can find is approaching six inches. The snowfall cut off is really the northern side of Allen county. The north side of the county getting about 3". Eastern and northern counties to Fort Wayne getting about 1" so the cut off is very sharp. The snowfall should end by the middle of the morning. The line of snow is quickly ending across the western side of the state.

Let it Snow? Snow is back into the picture here and it's a tricky little system. Let me explain my thinking by first pointing to why the weather service is forecasting a heavy snow. One of the numerical models is putting out 5 plus inches for the Fort Wayne area. The GFS-NAM model is putting this information. Many times I see this model over-doing precipitation, especially with snowfall forecasts. Here is my thinking on this one.










You can see in the 48 hour 850 mb plot that the low which will be responsible for this storm is well across the Northeast. I don't believe it travels far enough to the north and east for us to get into the heaviest snowfall. In fact, I put it on more of a Cincy to Buffalo track. This would bring snowfall in but would relegate the heaviest snowfall south of Fort Wayne. Maybe Bluffton on south ward may get 4 inches of snow. South of that especially in the Muncie are we could be looking at about 6"

Here is one of the models we use here at the weather center it's called Addonis and we call it Futurecast on TV. It shows the low across southern Kentucky. More importantly it takes it on a southward track.

Take a look at this snap shot early Wednesday morning. The track takes it south of Columbus, Ohio. That would put the heaviest snowfall south of our area.










Cold air will be back after that through Friday morning as 850 Celisus temperatures drop to around -12 degrees.

Arctic air coming in for another visit: Let's enjoy today and early tomorrow as much as we can because that unwanted relative from the north is coming in for another visit.
You can actually see the mild air coming for a visit today with 850 mb temperatures near +3! Okay, so here's the other shoe...and it's big one. This usually happens ahead of an arctic weather system as that gateway to the north will be opened by another 'clipper' type weather system moves through the area and changes the flow to a north flow which opens up that arctic gateway.
You can see the cusp of the cold air moving in late Friday behind the clipper system with temperatures of -14 to -22 Celsius coming into northern Indiana by Friday evening.
It's not the core of the coldest air but it is certainly formidable as the coldest air (-50 C) sits in southern Canada and northern Michigan. But a couple of things really don't bode well for a quick moderation in temperatures. One is that the cold air is moving across an area which snow covers the ground. That makes it nearly impossible to moderate temperatures. The other is that the core of cold air is not far from the air mass we will be experiencing.

Cold start: We are not seeing the bitter cold air that we saw last week, but still moderately cold with 850 mb temperatures around -16 Celsius. So even with sunshine it's doubtful that we will make it past 20 degrees this afternoon.

You can still see the arctic still opened up through Tuesday morning. That gateway will allow for another cold day Tuesday as well.

Mid-Week Warm up:
On Thursday morning you can see the cold air retreat up towards northern Canada. The gate way closes a bit with warmer air coming in. The core of the coldest air is back in the polar regions of the world.

Another Shot of Cold Air: It doesn't last though with another 'clipper' system coming in on Friday with snow chances and especially more cold air. You can see the low the moves across Ohio and to the east coast.

The core of the coldest air comes down from the north again to southern Canada. This is a little troubling as we will see cold air through the weekend. Not as cold as last week but still very cold. A word of caution here, this is the only model carrying the cold air. As usual we'll wait for the other models to come around to this solution.

Wind Chills

Wind chills: Before we talk about today's weather I want to blog about wind chills. I hear people get really excited about wind chill temperatures and how cold it is. I want to remind you that wind chill is a value or perceived temperature. The formula has been changed recently because the old formula was based on water and not on exposed skin. Just for fun here is old and new the formula.

Wind chill temperature = 35.74 + 0.6215T - 35.75V (**0.16) + 0.4275TV(**0.16)

In the formula, V is in the wind speed in statute miles per hour, and T is the temperature in degrees Fahrenheit.

Note: In the formula, ** means the following term is an exponent (i.e. 10**(0.5 ) means 10 to the 0.5 power, or the square root of V), - means to subtract, + means to add. A letter next to a number means to multiply that quantity represented by the letter by the number. The standard rules of algebra apply.

For reference, the old wind chill formula was:

T(wc) = 0.0817(3.71V**0.5 + 5.81 -0.25V)(T - 91.4) + 91.4

Source for both formulas: The National Weather Service

By the way wind chill only applies to people and animals not objects.

Snow is heavy Snowfall has been surprisingly heavy this morning and it looks to continue for a few more hours early this afternoon. Snowfall amounts at the station are close to 3 inches. It looks like we could see anywhere from 3 to 5 inches from Fort Wayne south.