Sunday Afternoon Rambles…
1.) It’s another unseasonably pleasant afternoon across central Indiana. Despite a gusty SW breeze (open county is approaching 40 MPH throughout central IN Sunday afternoon), the sunshine and warm temperatures are providing a phenomenal second half of the weekend.
2.) Clouds will begin to increase tonight and give way to showers as we open the work week. There will be plenty of dry time Monday morning into the afternoon, but a passing shower will remain in our forecast. Heavier rain and embedded thunderstorms will arrive on the scene Monday night into the wee morning hours Tuesday. As a whole, we expect between 0.50-1″ of rain, overall, by Tuesday morning.
3.) We’ll trend cooler for the mid week stretch, but nothing “cold” for this time of year. In fact, temperatures will remain above average as high pressure provides dry conditions.
4.) Confidence is high on an active period of weather arriving for the weekend into potentially early parts of next week. That said, despite overall high confidence on a busy time of things, the specifics remain “murky,” at best. It’ll be important to check back for updates on the weekend forecast as we progress through the upcoming week. Solutions range anywhere from a period of rain and storms to possibly some wintry “mischief.” One thing seems certain and that’s for a period of colder air (below normal) arriving in the 8-10 day period. In fact, the latest European model suggests overnight low in the 10s late next weekend.
However the cold air won’t last and milder times will return by the second half of the weekend. This back and forth “tug of war” type regime will remain as cold and warmth (relative to average) continue to battle over the upcoming couple weeks. The latest European ensemble shows this nicely.
This also favors a rather active pattern and confidence is high on a wetter than average period upcoming over the next couple weeks. See the GFS ensembles support this idea. A couple strong storms are also possible Tuesday.
Unfortunately for snow lovers, the majority of significant moisture should fall as rain. Best snow chances appear to come with “backlash” wrap around snow showers and squalls Tuesday night into Wednesday morning. Accumulating snow is possible, but most amounts should be light. We’ll keep an eye on it.
Longer-term, the fight continues deeper into the month. As 
Since then, the European has begun to lock-in to a trend of bringing that SW energy out quicker and, in return, igniting a surface low to develop in the western Gulf of Mexico (GOM) Saturday before tracking northeast into the TN Valley (Sunday) and Great Lakes region (Monday).
Taken verbatim, this would spread a cold rain into central IN Sunday before colder air begins to change the rain over to a wet, heavy snow Sunday night into Monday morning across central IN. Heavy, wind-blown, snow amounts would result with such a solution for portions of central IN. Such a scenario would be a high-impact event. While the majority of model data (factoring in the GFS and Canadian, for example) is far from agreeing on such a solution, it’s important to note that a trend of such a scenario is beginning to develop within the powerful European forecast model. Furthermore, roughly half of the European’s (51) ensemble members agree on an impactful winter event in the Sunday-Monday time period for central Indiana.
