Beware of the 3 S's: The Siberian Express, Snow, and the Saskatchewan Screamer

What a pattern! We are back in mid-winter form. Bring in the pets, although in my case I will have to go find mine because he is hiding under one of our beds. I asked him if he wanted to go on a walk and he ran upstairs. Yes, our Prangley dog BJ is a basket case. This weather has a lot of folks all shook up. There is a lot of shaking going on with wind chills plummeting to near zero early this morning. Yesterday, we had tons of reports of Canada geese flocking northward and you can see they actually invaded Mary Anne in Remington's bird feeders above. Well, apparently once those cold winds hit the area last night they were spotted heading south again. Now I think they are onto something. I am worried about the sandhill cranes and their paper thin legs which will not take long to freeze in this weather. Hopefully they are finding some warm nesting sites. This cold outbreak is being caused by the Siberian Express.


I call it this because this cold air has been tracked all the way from Siberia where there is still plenty of cold air. Check out our weather update from Siberia which includes pictures of frostbite and an update from our Siberian pen pal via his Mom!

Hi, Mike,

Attached is the photo of my son, Cole, at -49 C in Surgut, Russia (in Siberia). The white spot is frostbite. This mama is trying not to worry... :D

The other photo was take in December. Cole says he climbed 840 steps to get the view of Mt. Medeyu (not sure where that is, but it's somewhere in Russia.)

Enjoy!

Lynn Isenbarger

West Lafayette


Thanks for sharing this Cole and Lynn. We have nothing to complain about here in Lafayette after seeing that picture. Tell Cole to cover that face up and hopefully he was not in too much pain once he went inside to a warmer location. I know that frostbite can be quite painful. I had a milder form of it when I lived in Minnesota and to this day I still have trouble with that small patch of skin on my hand, especially when it is cold and dry outside. This is a good reminder that frostbite will be possible in as little as 40 minutes this morning. Bundle up the little ones. A piece of this bitter cold air Cole saw last week in Siberia is settling over our area. Luckily it had some time to at least moderate a little. Here is the latest check on what Cole is experiencing in Siberia today. Unbelieveable....still near -55 degrees without wind chill! Ouch, it hurts just typing that. Siberia is located in the upper corner of the map....the left side of the map is Greenland, northern Canada, Alaska.
At least it looks absolutely beautiful there. Here is the picture of Mt. Medeyu.


Now I know some of you need to get some sleep and so do I. Try to lay off the ice cream. I heard that is really bad for you this time of night. I usually eat more before a nice big snow so it will be tempting, but I am making a pact with you tonight....a sandwich but no ice cream. Besides, I will be in boot camp with Kristen at International this weekend and I want to survive. If you have not taken agility jam I highly recommend it. Okay, here is the deal.....the models right now are a joke but I am looking a climatology for this time of year and I love our chances of this clipper system going above and beyond for snow lovers here in Lafayette. Usually clippers bring our area one to three inch snows in the winter. But this is not a usual circumstance. Meteorological Spring is less than 10 days away and thermal contrasts or temperature differences tend to energize these type of weather makers this time of year. So our one to three inch snowfalls are sometimes doubled. Take a look at today's highs.


On Friday a similar temperature gradient will set up over the high plains helping our Sasketchewan Screamer hold together. It will actually be even more impressive with a range from single digits to 50s in a span of just 250 miles! We are also calling our clipper the Saskatchewan Screamer because this is where I think this system gets its act together and develops. The province of Saskatchewan in Canada is located east of Alberta. It is also called a screamer because it moves very quickly and this one will be no exception. It will be riding in on a 125 mph jet stream out of the northwest.


My first call holds....I like 3 to 5 inches of snow moving in late Friday night and Saturday morning. The European and Canadian models (NOT GEESE) are my models of choice. The GFS seems to be coming around nicely as well with 5.2 inches of snow being cranked out for Lafayette with the main track going right over Randy's house in Frankfort. This is an increase from late last night when it printed out 4.4 inches of snow for us. It should be fun to see what happens. But I really like our chances for good sledding weather this weekend. The SOUTHSIDE SNOW MOBILE CLUB WILL BE HAPPY! They will get the three or more inches of snow needed! Send in some pictures. I am really rooting for this one because my original winter forecast was for Lafayette to have 25 to 30 inches of snow. This would put us closer to that range. I will have more on just how much snow we actually have had and where it compares to normal here on the blog and on tonight's newscasts. Speaking of snow, the second "s" which stands for snow and slippery roads are already out there after our rain changed to a dusting to almost an inch of snow in spots last night, there are some icy patches on the roadways out there. Make sure to be safe and allow extra time. Some car doors may be frozen shut after the big temperature fall. But as Hoosiers we can deal with this and handle it. Here is an inspirational quote before I go have some green tea (no ice cream).

Summer is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces up, snow is exhilarating; there is no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather. -John Ruskin