WeatherFanatics: End of Winter Snowstorm to Impact Nebraska to Michigan

Tuesday, March 18, 2014

End of Winter Snowstorm to Impact Nebraska to Michigan

By Alex Sosnowski, Expert Senior Meteorologist

March 18,2014; 1:05PM,EDT

A storm pushing out of the Rockies will produce a swath of heavy snow from parts of Nebraska and South Dakota to portions of Minnesota, northern Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan through midweek.
The storm deposited up to 2 feet of snow in parts of Montana since the start of the week and close to a foot of snow in parts of Wyoming and western South Dakota.
Enough snow can fall to cause travel delays and disruptions to daily activities into Wednesday.

Moving forward, the storm has the potential to unload a half of a foot of snow in some locations from north-central Nebraska to central Minnesota and along the southern shoreline of Lake Superior.
The storm will pack some wind as well. Local whiteouts are possible where the wind combines with falling or already fallen snow.

Winds averaging between 15 and 30 mph with higher gusts are forecast to cause blowing and drifting snow during and in the wake of the storm into Tuesday night over the central Plains.
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South of the snowstorm, winds will howl across the central and southern High Plains.
Strong winds can make for difficult travel along the I-25, I-70 and I-40 corridors into Tuesday night.
Winds gusting between 30 and 50 mph will kick up dust and raise the risk for wildfires in portions of Nebraska, eastern Colorado, western Kansas, northern Arizona, northern New Mexico and the panhandles of Texas and Oklahoma. Much of this area was experiencing moderate to extreme drought conditions.
Even though spring officially arrives on Thursday, the winter weather will not abide by the change of seasons.
While a push of chilly air follows the midweek storm, a stronger push of cold air is forecast to follow yet another storm with snow at the end of the week.