Clipper System Sailing Toward the Southern Great Lakes Tonight 1/30/17

Update 1/31/17
Late January's clipper system deposited snow across much of the region with highest amounts where depicted on forecast map. Generally 2 - 4" with some isolated 4'+ did fall in the the highest totals.

see:  http://www.weather.gov/dtx/170131winteradvisory
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Latest 12Z models are now in excellent agreement with clipper type system moving quickly southeast from the Upper Midwest into the Southern Lakes Monday night into Tuesday Midday. All indications are snow will overspread Southeast Lower Michigan from the northwest to southeast Monday evening and continue through Tuesday morning. Look for the bulk of the snow to fall during the early morning hours of Tuesday and into the rush hour of Tuesday. Some rain mixed with snow could clip the southeast corner  (near/below yellow dashed line) as warmer area clips that area Tuesday. The snow should rapidly diminish and push southeast out of the area during the Tuesday forenoon hours into early afternoon.

Snowfall amounts remain unchanged from earlier thinking below; mainly 1 - 3" with a strip of 2 - 4", isolated 4"+, across the area between I-96/696 to the north to I-94 and extreme Southeast Lower Michigan to the south - or area just north of the base of the weak triple point/occlusion.

Next up, we'll investigate the pattern change discussed last week and it's likely influence on the first half of February.

Making weather fun while we all learn,
Bill Deedler -SEMI_WeatherHistorian



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*Previous Short Term Discussion on Clipper System
https://www.facebook.com/weatherhistorianSEMI7415chats/

1/29/17
Clipper System to Add to Snowfalls of Past Day Snow showers; but Where?

There seems to be a divided camp on a clipper low pressure system taking aim on the Lakes Region late Monday night into Tuesday night. The 12Z GFS, 12z Euro and 12Z Canadian all bring a decent clipper system southeast from the upper Midwest into southern Lower Michigan by the forenoon hours of Tuesday. The NAM continues to insist of marching the clipper through central Michigan and thus, maximum snowfalls a displaced further north from SE Michigan to Central and East Central Lower Michigan.

Better sampling of a short wave moving through northwest US/southwest Canada today is beginning to bring a consensus of most of the models with the NAM the outlier.

At this juncture; look for generally 1-3" of snow to fall across Southeast Lower Michigan Late Monday into Tuesday afternoon. I also look for a strip of 2" - possibly 4" within the lighter snowfall region. I will fine tune as better data becomes available to the models.

Below are the snowfall projections of the GFS and NAM along with the tracks of the GFS, Euro & NAM as of Tuesday forenoon hours.