There are still many uncertainties, as to be expected, going into the weekend forecast regarding snow potential for the Sunday/Monday time frame. With the storm system still well off shore late this morning it likely won't be until Saturday when we're finally able to zero in on an exact track. But here's what we know as of right now:
The latest morning model runs continue to show somewhat of a consistency in their tracks, but there are no two models that agree with each other. This makes forecasting a potential major winter storm very frustrating for a meteorologist . Not much has changed from last night to this morning regarding the track of the system. We're basically looking at two possible scenarios that could unfold by Sunday afternoon. The first would be a further south and east track which would allow for more cold air to move into the Great Lakes increasing the probability of accumulating snowfall. The second scenario would be the low tracking either right over or very near the Stateline. This would allow for a little more warm air, what we call the warm conveyor belt, to get pulled into the system which may allow for a higher potential of a rain/snow mix Sunday before changing to all snow by Sunday night/Monday morning. For the next few days there are going to be track differences amongst our various models and this is to be expected. As we get closer to the end of the week we'll be able to better pinpoint what will happen. A couple things for you to keep in mind regarding this weekend's forecast are we've been pretty mild for the past couple of weeks and aren't expecting a big cool down ahead of this system which may ultimately affect the track of the low. The current temperature of the soil/ground is still above 32° so if accumulating snow were to fall some of it would likely melt once reaching the ground. We'll continue with updates throughout the week right here on the blog so you know exactly what to expect going into the weekend.
I do want to diverge a bit from the weekend forecast to discuss the weather leading into Saturday morning. A cold front moving in from the northwest late Thursday will bring a few showers overnight into Friday morning. As the front stalls south of the Wisconsin/Illinois border Friday another low pressure system (likely an inverted trough) will move along the stalled front from Iowa to Illinois by Friday night. As it does, there will be an increase in colder air aloft which could produce some accumulating snowfall late Friday north and northwest from southern Wisconsin to northwest Illinois. This system, too, will be monitor in later shifts.
As we gear up for what could be a big snow for someone in the Midwest/Great Lakes area, I want to introduce our
Winter Storm Impact Forecast graphic. There you'll find a four day outlook highlighting the days that could receive the most impact from a potential winter storm. The graphic is color coded: green indicates there will be no weather hazard, yellow means daily activities/driving conditions shouldn't be heavily impacted, orange means there could be some travel delay and impacts on the roads and red indicates dangerous driving conditions and a significant impact to your daily activities. In the days leading up to a big event we will use our Winter Storm Impact Forecast to help highlight and break down which days could be most problematic for you and what you should watch out for. Along with showing the graphic during our weathercasts we will also post and update it on the right hand side of our blog. This will be updated twice a day, once in the morning and once in the evening, but only in the afternoon on the weekends. We welcome your feedback with this new addition and hope you find it useful during the winter season.
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