Low clouds and areas of fog will be slow to burn off this morning, but the sunshine should eventually return later this afternoon and evening, providing a phenomenal close to the weekend.
Despite the lack of sunshine this morning, temperatures continue to run much milder than average. We’re currently running nearly 20° above where we should be at the 9a hour.
A quiet start to the work week is ahead as high pressure dominates early on. That said, a weak storm system will scoot through the state Monday night and Tuesday morning and this will help offer up the chance of showers and perhaps a rumble of thunder.
The next (more significant) storm system will pose a severe weather risk to close the week. We continue to keep a close eye on Friday and the Storm Prediction Center is as well, with western IL, IN, and western KY in their Day 6 Outlook. It’s still early, but the primary focus with the severe potential this storm may pose will be large hail and damaging straight line winds. Stay tuned as we continue to analyze the latest data.
We’ll turn sharply colder Friday night and Saturday. Though it’ll feel much colder, we’ll really only “chill” to seasonal levels, including a gusty northwesterly breeze Saturday.
Longer-term, we’re rumbling into a much more active weather pattern through the mid range period. As the mean trough sets-up position in the west, the ridge will flex it’s muscle across the east yet again during early portions of Week 2. This will set the stage for a repeat of what we deal with Friday and, accordingly, we’ll have to monitor early next week for portions of severe weather yet again.
Winds will turn strong and gusty out of the southwest this afternoon, noted by the tightly packed isobars (lines of equal pressure) along with considerable mid and high level clouds.
Clouds will lower and thicken Saturday and we may also have to deal with periods of fog, as well. Showers and drizzle will lift into town as the day progresses, especially by afternoon and evening.
We don’t expect heavy rain this weekend. In fact, model data continues to really back off on expected totals. The general consensus is between 0.15″ and 0.25″ across central Indiana.
After a mild Saturday, cooler (but not cold) air will ooze into the Ohio Valley Sunday.
Resurgent cold air will blow into town during the middle and latter portions of the upcoming work week. Highs will return to the 30s with overnight lows in the lower 20s. We’ll likely add scattered snow showers into the mix as well.
Timing:
Timing:
It’s not until we push into Wednesday afternoon and evening that more widespread snow will move through central Indiana, including Indianapolis.
Periods of moderate to locally heavy snow can be expected through central and north-central parts of the state Wednesday evening, especially between the hours of 3p-7p. This will be a wet snow and though the snowfall intensity should be impressive at times, it’ll have a hard time accumulating from what it otherwise could be if the ground was cold. With that said, we do anticipate snowfall rates to overcome initially marginally cold air and “warm” surface temperatures. Our forecast calls for a dusting to 1″ for the city, itself, increasing to 1″-3″ north of the city- encompassing most of north-central Indiana. Roadways will likely become slushy with wet snow accumulation Wednesday evening.
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