After a night of freezing rain, many roadways throughout central IN remain glazed over and hazardous as of this update. If you absolutely don’t have to travel today, please don’t. Allow road crews to do their job. Additionally, we have growing concerns of a new round of freezing rain to sleet and eventually snow tonight. Lingering moisture on roadways will result in “flash freeze” conditions and treacherous travel tonight into Sunday.
First, a tip of the hat to short-term modeling, including the NAM, for suggesting we’d have a very difficult time eroding the shallow arctic air at the surface across most of central IN today. While we never bought into the mid/ upper 50s idea the GFS and Euro were once suggesting, we did initially think 40s were in store today. Forget about it. Mid to potentially upper 30s are the best we can do today and temperatures will crash this evening as not one, but two, arctic fronts push through central IN. Even if we didn’t have additional precipitation inbound tonight, “flash freeze” conditions would develop from lingering moisture and lead to renewed problems on area roadways. Throw in another wave of low pressure riding along the pressing arctic front and a whole slew of problems will develop yet again from a freezing and frozen precipitation perspective.
Note the incredible temperature gradient from downstate to central and northern Indiana early this afternoon.
The heavy, dense, arctic air will win out as evening turns into nighttime. Indianapolis is back to the freezing mark around 6p and into the 20s by 9p.
Temperatures will continue to fall through the day Sunday and by Monday morning central Indiana will be in the single digits, with below zero readings across northern parts of the state.
Wind chill values of 10 to 20 degrees below zero will be common by Sunday night into Monday morning across central Indiana.
Areas of drizzle and freezing drizzle will continue across the region into the early afternoon, but begin to expand in coverage and intensity once again by evening. Note the area of freezing rain expand across central IN, including Indianapolis, between 4p and 7p.
Freezing rain will eventually begin to mix with sleet and eventually transition to light snow during the overnight from northwest to southeast. A coating of snow to less than 1″ is a good bet on the new icy glaze that develops tonight.
When you factor in the current hazardous conditions in place along with the fresh push of arctic air and precipitation tonight, it’s a good idea to hunker down inside and remain off area roadways. We have big concerns of new travel problems developing by evening across central Indiana. By this time tomorrow, our attention will turn to the bitterly cold air and dangerous wind chill values developing.
More later, including prospects of snow around Christmas. As always, you can follow our updates on social media by following us on Twitter (@indywx) and Facebook. Stay safe!