Winter Weather Watch: Midwest Ground Blizzard; Southern Ice Potential

By: By Tom Niziol

Published: January 26,2014

 

 

 

 

Winter Weather Threats

Welcome our Winter Weather Watch page. Here, we will detail the latest winter weather threats, updated by winter weather expert Tom Niziol (Twitter | Facebook), senior meteorologist Tom Moore, and our meteorologists in the Global Forecast Center.

Rain/Snow Forecast

Clipper brings snow and wind to the Great Lakes and Midwest today. Arctic air plunges through the northern Plains creating blizzard conditions into tonight. Arctic air sweeps the Midwest and East for early week with a wintry mix and snow developing along the Gulf Coast and Carolinas Tuesday and Wednesday.
SUNDAY STORM:CON (What is this?)

• Fargo, N.D.:  6 (Around 1" of snow, wind, blizzard conditions)
• Minneapolis-St. Paul:  5 (Around 1" of snow, wind, near blizzard conditions)

Today (Sunday): Upper Midwest Through Great Lakes to the Northeast

A clipper races through the Great Lakes, northern Ohio Valley into interior New England Sunday. This will bring a swath of 1-3" of snow, locally higher amounts, especially near the Lakes and some gusty winds and blowing snow. This includes Chicago (early), Detroit and Cleveland. The arctic front plunges rapidly southward into the northern Plains Sunday into Sunday night with blizzard conditions from the Dakotas into western Minnesota and northern parts of Iowa. Winds will gust over 60 mph at times with rapidly falling temperatures and light snow. Visibilities will be restricted to near zero in spots and travel is not recommended as this is a life threatening weather situation. A disturbance with the arctic front will slide a band of snow down the Rockies from Montana to Colorado today into Monday. This will bring some light accumulating snow to Denver starting later tonight and lingering into Monday evening.
Gulf Coast to Carolinas Tuesday-Wednesday
As the arctic air plunges into the Deep South through early week, moisture from the southern branch of the jet stream will interact with the cold air to bring a wintry mix and snow. The main band of precipitation likely sets-up from southern and southeastern Texas to southern Louisiana, southern Georgia and the eastern Carolinas. At this time, models are coming into good agreement for some minor to moderate accumulating ice and snow, including Houston, New Orleans, Mobile, near Savannah to Charleston and the Outer Banks. Still uncertainty on how this plays out, especially with accumulations and how far north moisture gets, but confidence is increasing that this system has a moderate to high chance of being named.
Sierra Snow Drought (Some relief on the way)
The dry conditions and subsequent lack of snow pack across the Sierra continues to worsen, but finally the current forecasts is now showing an increase in showers and mountain snow by Tuesday across far northern California into the Pacific Northwest.  An even better shot of rain and mountain snow for northern and north-central California Thursday into early Friday as the ridge breaks down.  Right now, the average snow water content for the Sierra stands at about 15% of average for this time of the year .  The area of the state under Extreme Drought conditions has expanded from 28% to 63% in the past week; one year ago none of the state was under Extreme Drought.