After a day of spring-like warmth and thunder, Old Man Winter will stage a comeback Wednesday. Let’s get right to our snowfall forecast:
Timing:
Snow will overspread north-central parts of the state Wednesday morning. Most of this “initial round” of snow will remain north of the city, itself.
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.
Brief Shot Of Arctic Air:
Temperatures will fall into the middle-upper 10s for most of central Indiana by Thursday morning with highs Thursday only topping out in the lower to middle 20s. The arctic air won’t stick around as we zoom back into the lower 40s Friday after a very cold start (upper 10s).
2.) What at one time looked to be a significant weekend storm now may not even deliver any precipitation at all to the region. A flurry is possible, but most should remain precipitation-free this weekend. Expect a gusty southwest wind developing SB Sunday. Highs around freezing Saturday will zoom into the middle 40s Sunday. Lows Saturday morning in the middle 10s will rise into the upper 20s to around 30 Sunday morning.
3.) A more significant storm system will cut for the Great Lakes early next week and this will deliver gusty showers and embedded thunderstorms. A couple of stronger storms aren’t out of the question. Locally heavy rains can be expected, including amounts of 1″-1.5″ (locally heavier totals).
4.) Cold air will rush back into the region behind the storm and snow showers and squalls are likely by Wednesday.
5.) Longer-term, a real fight is developing on the overall direction we’re heading as February evolves. Analog methods and teleconnections (shown below) would yield bullish cold signals and give hope to winter enthusiasts. However, modeling isn’t in agreement on the wintry ideas. In fact, some modeling is very spring-like as mid-Feb nears. Stay tuned as we try and iron out the details this weekend. Updates will come.
Showers will expand in overall coverage as we progress through the late morning hours, but shouldn’t amount to much (0.10″ for a few neighborhoods). We return to a drier theme this afternoon.
Longer term, the GFS ensemble continues to show the cold growing deeper and stronger for the region as we progress into early February. Winter is far from over.
After the past week to ten days, that frigid open to the month seems like forever ago! The past 7-10 days has featured a significant January thaw, and temperatures now, MTD, are warmer than average across the Ohio Valley. Warmest anomalies can be found across the southeast region.
That said, the pattern is shifting back to winter for the last week of the month and while the duration, longer-term, can be argued, the next 2-3 weeks appear to offer an opportunity to play “catch up” in both the snow and cold departments. Note the developing eastern troughiness. This will bring colder air back into the east as we close January and open February. The GFS ensembles, courtesy of Tropicaltidbits.com, also develops an interesting “blocky” look towards the end of the period in Week 2. Should this verify, it would lead to a better chance of the cold, active pattern locking in.
Thinking here at IndyWx.com believes the European is likely rushing the warmer central look. Time will tell…