A storm system will gather strength to our south as we progress through the day and into the night. While central Indiana won’t experience significant impacts from this storm, we’ll indirectly deal with this system with considerable cloudiness and a chilly easterly breeze today.
Our friends to our south (KY and the higher elevations of the southern Appalachians) can expect accumulating snow. The east TN and western NC mountains will accumulate over 6″ above 5,000 feet late tonight through Monday morning.
The region will be under the grips of a cold northerly flow through the first half of the work week. Embedded within that air flow will be a couple of upper level disturbances that will drop into the Ohio Valley. These impulses of energy will help kick off snow showers and localized heavier squalls at times Monday through Wednesday. Some localized accumulations of a dusting to 1″ will be possible.
High pressure will gain control of our weather Thursday and this will include the start of a nice moderating trend for the second half of the week, including the St. Patrick’s Day weekend. With full sunshine Thursday, along with WAA (warm air advection) kicking in, we think highs will top out much warmer than the majority of current guidance suggests. We’ll go with widespread mid to upper 50s Thursday.
Unfortunately, we’ll add more clouds and showers next weekend. Wet weather will build in Friday and we can’t rule out shower chances Saturday, as well. Temperatures will warm well into the 60s by St. Patrick’s Day!
In general, we expect 0.25″ to 0.50″ across central IN with showers in the Friday-Saturday time period.
The first few days of March have gotten off to a warmer than average start, but the coming 5-10 days will run colder than average across a large portion of our region.
Perhaps of more importance, and a greater focus, locally, is the potential one of these storms will slow down and intensify into something more significant than a 12-24 hour period of snow showers and squalls. The first contender arrives over the upcoming weekend, but with this being 4-5 days out, confidence remains low.
However, it’s important to understand model biases from this distance. So often, the GFS can rush things along in the medium range, only to later correct as time draws closer. If things slow, the associated energy will merge and result in the possibility of a significant, if not major, late-winter storm for portions of the Ohio Valley. As it is, a few of the GEFS ensemble members show this potential.
Unfortunately, there’s no way to be more specific from this distance. It’s easy to see both arguments (for and against a more significant storm) from this point, but with high latitude blocking in place (an ingredient missing most of the time from this winter, and several of the past few winters), we most certainly need to keep close tabs on subsequent model runs. Long-time Hoosiers remember when storms of significance actually did, indeed, impact the area. 🙂
II. The next item we continue to monitor has to do with an initial piece of energy that will scoot across the Ohio Valley Friday. This is ahead of a more significant storm that will likely develop over the weekend and models continue to fluctuate on how they handle things. For now, we’ll maintain a rain/ snow mix Friday, but simply can’t get more specific than that. There are ways this could deposit a stripe of accumulating wet snow for some of the region, but it’s premature to try and nail down where this may occur.
III. We also have to continue to keep a close eye on what transpires Sunday. We favor one surface low tracking along the Ohio River into the Appalachians before a secondary low takes over along the Mid Atlantic coastline Monday. Again, a swath of wet snow north of the low’s track Sunday into early Monday.
IV. While we should see warmth eject out of the southern Plains in the Week 2 time frame, the large majority of data says this will only be temporary and that cooler than normal temperatures will persist through the balance of the upcoming several weeks. With late season high latitude blocking in place it’s hard to disagree with that idea. Once blocking sets up (especially late in the season), it can be like “pulling teeth” to get any sort of sustained warmth. Just an idea here.
