LATEST WINTER STORM OUTLOOK

Happy Friday everyone!  Before I get to the bad news, there is a little good news in the weather for now.  We have a brief warm-up on the way over the next couple of days.  Don't get used to it, because huge changes arrive beginning later tomorrow night as a potentially major winter storm moves in.

I updated the forecast for the short-term on my Facebook weather page.  For this blog I will only focus on the winter storm headed our way.  The NWS has gone ahead and issued a WINTER STORM WATCH for a good portion of the state.  This runs from late tomorrow night, and goes all the way through Monday morning.

 

This is going to be a long duration event.  It won't all come at once, it will come in waves through Monday morning.  We will begin to see some precipitation move in after midnight tomorrow night.  This will come in waves through 3:00 Sunday afternoon, then really pick up in intensity after that.  Temperatures for Sunday are tricky.  There is a chance the parts of southeast Indiana (Orange, Washington counties and points southeast) could stay warm enough Saturday night through early Sunday afternoon to only see plain rain.  However, even these spots quickly go below freezing Sunday afternoon and that is when the problems begin to occur.   

As we head into Sunday night, heavy icing is a big concern for extreme southern Indiana, before everything changes to snow by early Monday.  Here is my map for now.  I want to mention that the models have shifted the freezing rain farther southward, so the worst icing may even go south of Bedford/Seymour if trends continue.  I still think areas south of Bloomington and Columbus will have a lot of sleet which will cut down on snow totals, but sleet is SO MUCH BETTER that freezing rain.  There is question how much icing will occur in southern Indiana.  The big factor here is how long it will stay freezing rain before changing to sleet.  That will make a huge difference.  Areas closer to the Ohio river could see 1/4"-1/2" if not as much as as 3/4" of icing, again it all depends on the duration!  This could be enough to cause major problems to power lines, tree limbs, etc. so continue to keep a very close eye out on the latest forecast.  I will be closely monitoring the models today, and by this evening, I should have a much more detailed map.  **The exact track of this system could still change, and that will have big effects on the forecast.**