We continue to closely monitor our developing situation Saturday night and Sunday. After reviewing all of the data this afternoon, we still have no real reason to believe the initial…
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Brief Break From The Severe Cold, But Not For Long…Today will be the “pick of the week” as milder air and some sunshine lead to a decent Wednesday. (It’s funny we say “milder” with highs that barely rise above our average low, but we’ll take what we can get).
A clipper system will impact the region tonight through Thursday and spread light snow across the area. This won’t be a big deal, but accumulations around 1″ will be possible (perhaps an isolated 2″ report here or there). The bigger deal? Fresh bitterly cold arctic air pushing in here to wrap up the work week and head into the weekend. Record-smashing cold and dangerous wind chills will be with us.
The next storm system will spread snow and a wintry mix through central Indiana Saturday night into Monday morning. As we mentioned last night, this is a fluid situation and it’s still far too early for specifics. That said, central Indiana is very much in play for another accumulating wintry event this weekend.
A final piece of energy will deliver more precipitation early next week. As of now we forecast a wintry mix of snow and sleet to transition to rain as milder air pushes in from the southwest Tuesday. Again- much can still change.
Upcoming 7-Day Precipitation Forecast:
Bundle Up…A series of arctic highs will build south and result in an absolutely frigid week across a large portion of the country, including here on the home front. Several cold records will fall this week.
For the most part, we’re looking at a dry week, but a skinny band of light snow may blow through the area Tuesday afternoon/ evening- not a big deal.
Models are struggling on the details with our next storm system. It’s possible we’ll have to add a wintry mix of rain and snow into your Sunday forecast, but prefer to wait another set of runs before doing so. Timing and track remain big questions at this point- common from a Day 6+ event. The GFS and European lean towards a milder, wetter event while the Canadian is colder and more suppressed. Much more on this later.
Upcoming 7-Day Precipitation Forecast:
Here’s our latest thinking in regards to Friday night and Saturday.
Highlights:
Heavy Cold Weather Gear Needed…It’s a frigid morning across central Indiana with all reporting sites well below zero. Despite the sunshine today, we’ll only “warm” into the middle single digits- smashing the former record cold maximum of 12 degrees. Amazing stuff! Wind chills will remain below zero and downright dangerous.
Eyes shift to a wintry weather maker this weekend and overnight computer guidance has begun to catch onto a much more realistic suppressed, colder solution, as opposed to the warmer and more aggressive storm into the Ohio Valley. We still have time to watch for additional changes, but for now we think light snow overspreads central Indiana Friday evening, before a bit heavier precipitation moves in late Friday night and Saturday morning. The “2nd round” of precipitation will likely consist of most of the ice/snow accumulation, including mostly snow across north-central Indiana, a messy mix of sleet and freezing rain across the heart of central Indiana, and a cold rain downstate. Caution though that this is still preliminary thinking and certainly subject to change. An early guesstimate on central Indiana snowfall potential with this system would be for a light to borderline moderate event- 2″ to 4″ type deal.
The Arctic Express quickly gains momentum yet again Sunday night and will lead to another frigid week next week. This pattern is getting to be unbelievable from both the sustained cold, but the extreme nature of the cold, as well. Put this into perspective, only three days of the above forecast period feature high temperatures close to, or slightly warmer, than our average low.
Upcoming 7-Day Precipitation Forecast: