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!
2.) Our next storm will approach Friday evening. Clouds will increase and thicken as the day gives way to evening and a wintry mix of snow, sleet, and freezing rain will overspread central IN Friday night. With snow on the ground and the recent bitter blast, we have concerns the cold air won’t be “dislodged” as quickly as last weekend. The end result may be a period of accumulating freezing rain/ sleet Friday night into early Saturday morning. We’ll keep a close eye on things.
Regardless, icy precipitation will transition to rain during the day Saturday as temperatures briefly surge above freezing. “Brief” is the key word there as temperatures plummet Saturday night, courtesy of fresh arctic air oozing back in. A secondary wave of moisture may result in additional wintry issues Saturday night. Additionally, with sharply colder air returning, “flash freeze” concerns loom Saturday night, as well.
4.) Our attention then shifts to what may very well be an active Christmas week in the weather department. We continue to think the frigid times of this week will relax. That said, it’ll remain cold enough with a favorable storm track to result in wintry issues as Christmas nears. Far too early for specifics with this 10+ days out, but keep it in the back of your mind that the weather pattern continues to look active and at least present a threat of wintry precipitation at times Christmas week.
