I expect some light snow to impact mainly the southwest half of the state early Friday morning. This will not amount to much at all, but some slick spots cannot be ruled out. As we get into Friday afternoon and evening, additional snow showers are possible. This will be another decent lake-effect snow event for far northern Indiana, a heads up if travelling that way. Also, I would watch for a lake effect snow band to extend a pretty far distance into eastern Indiana tomorrow night. Temperatures will drop into the single digits for Saturday morning, and expect highs to only reach the teens. BRR! At least we will see sunshine.
Changes start to roll in for the second half of the weekend. We have a complicated forecast from Sunday to Monday night time-frame. I will share my thinking based off the current data, but know that the data is still all over the place and lacking consistency from run to run.
It appears we will see a wave of light snow push in for Sunday (Valentines Day). The trend is to speed up the arrival of the snow, now coming in around daybreak and continuing through the afternoon Sunday into the evening. At this time I am uncertain on how much snow will fall, but at least a couple/few inches definitely appears possible. Expect slick travel Sunday.
The trend is to develop a stronger storm to our south as we head into Monday, with the low pressure tracking through the Tennessee Valley Monday and going up the northeast Tuesday. Will this system stay mostly to our south and not impact us? Does it track farther north and bring decent precipitation into central and southern Indiana Monday? The trend (if you can pick out a trend, lol) seems to be for a stronger low tracking farther north, which would bring precipitation at least into southern Indiana. Here is the latest run of the GFS....
Graphics courtesy of WeatherBell Analytics. Taken at verbatim, there is a lot of rain with this storm to our south with a stripe of light snow on the north end across southern Indiana, and a band of heavy snow towards the Appalachians. The models likely are likely struggling on how to handle the temperature profiles. The EURO model brings precipitation much farther north and puts down decent snowfall across central and southern Indiana on Monday into Monday night. I drew a map showing where the Euro puts the snow band for Monday:
Note that is only from ONE run of the model. The next run may show no snow for us... who knows. That said, I think the latest run from the EURO makes the most sense given the pattern. Let's give the models another couple days to really show some better run to run consistency. Again, there is still chance at this point that we see little or nothing out of this - if the "main storm" on Monday stays south. That said, my gut tells me this will go farther north and I think central and southern sections of the state are "on the table" for some wintry precipitation out of this. To sum it up...
Snow looking likely most of Sunday into Sunday night. Perhaps a 1-3" event, with more north. Amounts still questionable.
After that wave of snow pushes out early Monday, we will have to watch to see what happens with the developing storm to our south. The strength and track of this low is uncertain.
I will post more updates on my Facebook page. Have a great evening!
