The Lion ROARS - Michigan could be buried by double-whammy by March 3rd

I've been so focused on the Wednesday/Thursday storm that I've only just now looked beyond it. The last couple GFS runs have indicated that another over-productive clipper system may descend from the north on/around next Monday to add to whatever totals we wind up with this week. The ECMWF doesn't quite agree with the track/placement, pushing it further north, but it does indicate that the feature is likely to develop, and should affect Michigan in some way.

The average clipper tends to produce 3-5" of new snow of the light, fluffy type, and can be exacerbated (as demonstrated two weeks ago) by the warm lakes, especially should the system stall with any part of the state in the cold sector (again, as demonstrated two weeks ago).

Every now and again, though, a strong high-pressure ridge over Saskatchewan/Manitoba can form in conjunction with one of these clippers, and push the storm all the way south toward Oklahoma. When that happens, the storm can acquire Gulf moisture and essentially become a Panhandle Hook. The GFS is forecasting this to happen early next week:

...while the ECMWF is not:

Depending on which scenario plays out, we could see an additional 2-4 inches, or an additional 6-10 inches of snow from this system. The last two GFS runs, which both predict the Panhandle Hook scenario, suggest this will be the amount on the ground by next week:

Today's morning run.

Today's midday run.

Note that this is still way early, and depends on a great number of variables aligning, the greatest of which is what happens this Wednesday/Thursday. I wouldn't put ANY stock in those numbers right now. The only reason I'm even bothering to show it is to marvel at what COULD happen if everything were to pan out right. We could literally go from no snow on the ground right now (everything here in the Thumb has melted off after the weekend warmup) to being buried under nearly two feet in the span of a couple of days. That's what I love about storms. They are a wild card. Climate models and trends just can't account for these things. You can have the mildest winter on record but still wind up with blizzards that set records or come close.

I'm still of the opinion that by mid March we're going to start warming up considerably. We'll see if that opinion changes over the next week.