Potential Winter Storm Brewing Next Week?

This graphic is accumulated snowfall through Thursday morning and has a swath of nearly a foot of snow right across northern Illinois.  A large area of heavy snow is likely from the southern Plains into the Mississippi  River Valley and Great Lakes no matter which track the low takes.  If it continues on this northern track we do stand a chance of picking up over 6"- 12" of snowfall by Wednesday afternoon.  I do want you to keep in mind that any type of change in this track will have a big impact on the snowfall we could see.  Stay tuned!! 

Afternoon Update: While the low is still off the west coast and has not come in to a very good data sampling, our morning computer runs are still pretty much on track with the potential big snow early to mid next week.  It actually looks like we'll get two rounds of snow.  The first coming during the Sunday night into Monday time frame.  This could be a few inches.  The second, and definitely the biggest of concern, will be Tuesday evening/Wednesday morning.  There is some guidance that is suggesting up to a foot of snow for some parts of our area!!!  Since the low is still spinning off the west coast and the models are having some trouble phasing the jetstream, there is still some time for this forecast to change.  However, I would definitely keep track of this forecast because if this track continues you may want to think about stocking up on a few things.

As we've been talking about for the past couple of days, the potential is there for a significant snow across parts of the Midwest and Great Lakes  - see previous post for earlier this week.

As we head into the first of this weekend, it looks like our computer models have been shifting the surface low a little further north with each run.  The evening GFS run (from Friday night) that takes the low from eastern Texas through the lower Mississippi River Valley and into Ohio by Wednesday afternoon.  While with this track the major snow totals (a foot or more) would be south of the immediate area, we could still see a healthy amount of snow during the Tuesday/Wednesday time frame.   

The very cold air that was advertised to hit early next week has now been delayed and this could allow for a further northward track of this low as it develops along a very strong jetstream on Monday.  One thing to note this morning is the low has not moved on shore yet in the Pacific Northwest.  Until it does, our weather models will wobble back and forth with its track.  As this mornings and evenings run come in, we should be able to get a better handle of the track of this system.  Be sure to keep checking back as we will continue to update you on this developing potential winter storm.