We wanted to take some time to focus solely on our next shot of accumulating snow due in here late Friday night into early Saturday morning. This will be a quick-hitter, but with snow ratios much higher than normal (thanks to the arctic air mass in place), it won’t take much moisture to fluff up a few inches of powder.
Before we get into the next snow, we can’t ignore what will be a growing concern as morning progresses into afternoon Friday. The pressure gradient will really begin to tighten between arctic high pressure to our south and the next cold front and associated low pressure to our north. West winds will increase and gust in excess of 30 MPH by early to mid afternoon. This will lead to concerns for blowing and drifting in the open country from the existing snow pack in place. Otherwise, mostly sunny skies will begin to cloud up later in the afternoon and evening.
A continued very windy evening will be coupled with light to moderate snow spreading south over the region late Friday night into Saturday morning. We note the heaviest snow likely to fall in the pre dawn hours Saturday and may become briefly heavy at times. We forecast 2-3″ of new snow with this system across all of central Indiana, but when you combine a strong west wind, shifting to the northwest Saturday morning, trouble will result. Significant blowing and drifting snow can be expected through the night and into Saturday. Travel will likely be very tough late Friday night into Saturday morning. Not only will we have to contend with severe blowing and drifting, but we’ll also have to deal with local white-out conditions.
The latest high resolution model data shows widespread snow across the region Saturday morning before snow tapers by mid morning from north to south.
As mentioned in posts from earlier this week, we’ll also deal with yet another round of accumulating snow for the second half of the weekend and we’ll have more on this tomorrow and Saturday…