Category: Forecast Discussion

Updated 12.17.23 @ 8:52a

An area of low pressure and associated cold front will continue to move east across the state this morning. Morning showers will come to an end from west to east over the next couple of hours. Speaking of rain, most area rain gauges picked up around half an inch of precipitation overnight. (Thank you for all of your reports)!

Meanwhile, our big coastal low will continue to deepen on its’ journey north along the eastern seaboard over the next 24 hours. Major impacts from high surf, heavy rain, and strong winds can be expected up and down the East Coast, along with significant airport impacts Monday. – Certainly not the start to the pre-Christmas week of travel many may hope for. As colder air pours in on the backside, a heavy, wind-whipped snow event will unfold from the high ground of those beautiful east TN and western NC mountains, up into the interior portions of the Northeast.

Back here on the home front, we still anticipate a piece of upper level energy to accompany a brief “jab” of arctic air to open up the last work week before Christmas.

This will help snow showers develop Monday morning with some locally intense snow squalls impacting the region late morning through the afternoon. These squalls will be most widespread north and east of the city, itself, but even into Indianapolis, I’d anticipate a couple heavy bursts of snow and briefly reduced visibilities Monday. While a dusting to perhaps as much as a half inch of snow is all we can expect across immediate central Indiana, areas downwind of Lake Michigan (north-central and northeast Indiana, including portions of east-central Indiana) can expect 1″ to 2″ with locally heavier amounts in spots where more persistent lake bands take hold.

While we’re not envisioning any sort of plowable snows locally, the brief more intense squalls will be capable of producing slick spots at times. Plan to allow extra time to safely reach your destination. Snow removal Clients, salting will be required across central and east-central Indiana Monday.

Wind will be the other component Monday, along with falling temperatures. We expect northwest gusts to approach 35 MPH at times. Wind chills will fall into the 10s.

Just as quickly as the snow and wind hits Monday, it’ll leave. High pressure will build in overhead Tuesday allowing sunshine to return in full force. After a cold day, temperatures will begin to moderate through midweek.

An increasingly moist, but milder, southwesterly flow will take hold late week which will lead to increasingly cloudy and gloomy conditions with rain returning. Unfortunately from this distance, it still appears that we’ll remain socked in with clouds and rain at times Christmas along with highs in the upper 40s to around 50. Areas of fog can also be expected at times.

Longer term, all systems are “a go” for a more substantial pattern shift towards colder and potentially wintry fun and games as we close out the year and head deeper into January. Model guidance over the weekend has grown more intriguing with not only the idea of a slower MJO rotation through the classic cold phases, and the EPO is also showing more and more signs of going negative.

While still not ready to say we’re primed for any sort of arctic outbreak, the thought here remains that we go slightly colder than normal early January with an active southern stream of the jet. Based off what the EPO and MJO do beyond this point (along with the AO/ NAO combo come mid-month), and the potential of laying a snowpack down will determine how cold we can go beyond mid-Jan.

You don’t need us to tell you that our El Nino is alive and kicking. What’s of interest is the cooler trends that continue in earnest in region 1+2. Should this continue, then the plot will thicken late winter and spring for the possibility of continued colder trends. . .