Category: Arctic Cold

Bitter Cold Settles In; Looking At Snow Chances In The Week Ahead…

Updated 01.13.24 @ 6:57a

We’re waking up to light snow this morning in the wake of our departing strong storm. As a new (albeit much, much weaker) disturbance moves across the Ohio Valley tonight, snow will increase in coverage and intensity this evening, continuing into early Sunday morning. At times, snow may fall at moderate intensity. This is all a byproduct of maximizing every bit of available moisture as the true bitter arctic air rolls into town. We’ll also need to be prepared for blowing and drifting issues.

A fresh 0.5” to 1.5” (may see a couple local reports of 2”) of snow can be expected with this system.

By tomorrow morning, dangerous wind chill values of 20° to 25° below zero can be expected.

“Cold” is the word in the week ahead but we’ll also monitor a couple of quick moving opportunities of additional snow. While it still doesn’t appear that anything overly heavy is on the table, it won’t take much for these systems to overachieve in the bitter arctic air (“fluff factor” will be present in the upcoming week). With the cold, even light snow events will make a mess of area roadways, so be sure to allow extra time to safely reach your destination.

It continues to appear that the system Monday into Tuesday will take a more suppressed route. We don’t expect much, if anything, here across central Indiana from a snow standpoint. Our eyes continue to focus in on Thursday/ Friday. The jet may buckle just enough to allow energy to slow down and organize a bit more to generate a more widespread snow event across our neck of the woods, but even this is admittedly tricky from this distance- just something we’ll continue to closely monitor in the week ahead.

One thing is for sure, whatever snow does fall in this pattern won’t be going anywhere as frigid as we’re going to be. Stay safe (and warm), friends!

Permanent link to this article: https://indywx.com/bitter-cold-settles-in-looking-at-snow-chances-in-the-week-ahead/

Prolonged Period Of Bitterness, But A Change Is On The Horizon…

Updated 01.12.24 @ 12:18p

The upcoming 10-days is a case of cold and if you believe some of the guidance, even colder (next weekend). Multiple nights below zero and dangerous wind chill values of 20° to 30° below zero are on tap at times during this period. You know that we’re interested to see if we meet our respective targets. It’s not just the magnitude of the cold, but the duration and widespread nature, as shown over the upcoming 10-day temperature anomalies from last night’s European ensemble.

But milder changes are on the horizon as we rumble through the warmer phases (at least this time of year) of the MJO and see some temporary trends within our teleconnection suite (AO, NAO, EPO, and PNA) that favor a period of much less harsh, and even milder than normal conditions developing by the last week of the month.

After our frigid stretch, temperatures even only a few degrees above normal will feel like a heatwave.

The hunch here is that we return to another cold stretch as we rumble into February. Long range guidance shows “part 2” of our high latitude blocking event and the thought here is this is a byproduct of a combination of sea surface temperature (SST) configuration in the northwest ATL, the current state of our Nino, as well as the SST configuration in the central/ northern PAC. At any rate, the alignment between teleconnections and, of course, the MJO rolling into the colder phases supports this idea. Let us worry about that and you enjoy the late month “mild-up!” Heavens knows after these next couple weeks, you will have earned it!

We’ll continue to keep tabs on the threat of snow over the next couple weeks. Things can, obviously, change but as of now I’m not seeing any hefty snow threats for central Indiana. The one feature that does potentially require watching is out there towards the end of next week, but the overall fast paced flow should prevent this from deepening into anything overly significant. At least that’s the way we see it now.

We’ll continue to keep close tabs on short-term trends but feel good with what we have out there concerning rain/ snow amounts, timing of the transition, and damaging wind potential.

Permanent link to this article: https://indywx.com/prolonged-period-of-bitterness-but-a-change-is-on-the-horizon/

VIDEO: Conditions Go Down Hill Through The Day; Bitterly Cold Pattern On Tap…

Updated 01.12.24 @ 6:22a A potent storm system will deal out a multitude of weather conditions over the next 12 to 18 hours, including strong winds, heavy rain, and light…

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VIDEO: Long Range Manifesto And Fresh Thoughts On Friday/ The Weekend…

Updated 01.11.24 @ 6:12p Busy times remain in the good ole forecast office! This evening we dig into not only new long range thoughts but look deeper into the latest…

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VIDEO: Prolonged Cold, Wintry Pattern…

Updated 01.11.24 @ 7:07a Yet another strong storm system (we may break minimum pressure records once again) will roll across the state Friday leading to a wind-whipped heavy rain event…

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