A warm front will drape itself across north-central Indiana today and while this will serve as an ingredient in the hefty northern IN snow event, it’ll allow southerly winds to pull briefly milder air north into central parts of the state this afternoon- middle to upper 40s for many! Further downstate, highs will go north of 50° this afternoon.
Colder air will move into the region this evening as the front settles south and we get back into a north, northeasterly flow. We’ll fall to around freezing shortly after midnight and temperatures are forecast to remain nearly steady or slowly fall Saturday- upper 20s to around 30 by Saturday afternoon.
As colder air seeps back into central Indiana, waves of moisture will continue to push northeast at times through the weekend. While precipitation totals won’t be particularly impressive, it doesn’t take much freezing rain to create issues and we’ll continue to monitor things closely over the weekend.
Periods of light freezing rain and/ or sleet will develop Saturday morning.
Models differ on various solutions, but perhaps the most widespread combination of light freezing rain, sleet, and snow will arrive Saturday evening into the day on Sunday. Stay tuned!
Looking ahead, a rather prolonged and significant snow event is setting up shop across northern Indiana. We forecast snow to begin falling Thursday night before becoming heavy at times Friday. A tight thermal gradient will aid in the combination of ingredients to produce hefty snowfall across far northern IN and also provide a brief break from the cold, locally, Friday afternoon (forecasting highs into the 40s here). With that said, if your travels take you north, prepare for significant travel disruptions with the heavy snow.
A cold front will drop south into central Indiana overnight Friday into Saturday. At the same time, a couple of disturbances will ride northeast along the front. This will result in periods of light wintry precipitation across central Indiana over the upcoming weekend. Initially, this should be rather insignificant with a mix of light rain and perhaps some light sleet or light freezing rain Saturday.
However, as our airmass becomes progressively colder Saturday night into Sunday things will become more interesting. At the same time, a final wave of energy will lift northeast, spreading moisture into the colder air mass. We forecast more widespread wintry precipitation to engulf central Indiana Saturday night into Sunday. A wintry mix of sleet and snow is possible early on before transitioning to all snow Sunday morning. A period of accumulating snow is expected Sunday and we’ll fine tune numbers as we move closer.
Looking further ahead, an active time of things will continue as the battle remains between cold centering itself across the northern Plains into the Lakes and Ohio Valley and resistance from the southeast ridge. This will continue to lead to a busy period of weather across the region, including storm systems that will come along every couple of days.
We continue to think things are aligning in a fashion that should result in a significant period of cold developing during the second half of February into March this year. We note the teleconnections continue to trend in cold directions and the MJO is also rolling along into the colder phases. We have a long, long ways to go this winter and think some headline events remain on the table as we close the month and open March. Time will tell.