Hope You Haven’t Put Those Snow Shovels Away Yet

More Snow Likely from Plains into Great Lakes; Severe Weather Southern Plains into the Southeast

It has been a busy week here with one of the twins being sick and then them having Spring break. That has equaled time not available to neither look at the weather nor provide blog posts but things are much quieter today. For the first time in a week, as I am typing this post I am seeing a bright, yellow ball in the sky. I believe it is the elusive sun. A slow progressing trough has kept much of the southeastern U.S. shrouded in low cloud cover which in turn has kept temperatures 5 to 10 degrees below normal. Things are beginning to change and instead of seeing temperatures below normal we will now see temperatures swing the opposite direct for much of the nation east of the Mississippi through Saturday and along the Atlantic Coast through Sunday. However, don't be fooled as another potent storm system will be progressing eastward from the Plains into the Southeast through Sunday, too, and it will bring another round of winter with it.

Currently, the energy that will spin up this system is in two parts with one now dropping southeastward through British Columbia, Canada and the other slowly moving southeastward out of northern California. By Friday morning, the Canadian piece will have made its way into eastern Idaho and the California piece will be moving over "Sin City". In response to these two pieces of energy moving towards each other, a large swath of precipitation will develop across much of the Rockies from western Montana into the "4-Corners" and eastward in the High Plains of Kansas and Nebraska and the Blackhills of South Dakota. There will also be a sharp temperature gradient that will stretch from northern Wisconsin-northwest Iowa-southwest Kansas. This sets up the likelihood of most of this precipitation falling in the form of SNOW. Denver will likely see a 3" to 6" snowfall from Friday into early Saturday.

As we head through Friday night and into Saturday morning, the two pieces of energy will merge into one storm system allowing the system the ability to strengthen and develop and a well organized surface area of low pressure over northeast Texas into southeast Oklahoma. Moderate to heavy precipitation will spread from southeast Wisconsin through much of Iowa, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas. Of this, much of it will be in the form of SNOW, especially from Milwaukee-Cedar Rapids-St. Joseph-Wichita-Amarillo. The sharp temperature gradient that will exist will make for a sharp separation from rain to snow and cities such as Kansas City, Tulsa and Oklahoma City could become included in this snow area by Saturday morning.

Continuing through Saturday, the storm system will continue to strengthen and deepen and even become closed off over eastern Oklahoma. At the surface, the low will be moving through northern Arkansas into southeast Missouri. The cold air will be slow to sink south of Milwaukee but will be crashing southward and eastward through Oklahoma, Texas and westward Missouri. Some very heavy snowfall is possible for southeast Kansas through much of western Missouri and into the Quad Cities of Iowa/Illinois. This also means Oklahoma City and Tulsa will likely see a late season snowfall during the day on Saturday. Further east and south from central Arkansas into southeast Texas severe thunderstorms will be likely.

By Sunday morning, the storm will have likely continued to strengthen and be located near Memphis with a surface low just to the south of St. Louis. A line of strong to severe storms will be lined up from the surface low through western Kentucky/Tennessee and to the Mississippi/Alabama Gulf Coast. Snow, some heavy, will continue to fall from southwestern Michigan through Chicagoland into central Missouri and northeast Oklahoma. The system will likely progress much more slowly through the day Sunday as it predominantly sits and spins. Some of the heaviest snows on Sunday could fall along and north of I-70 from Columbia to St. Charles, Missouri. It will interesting to see exactly how this system sets up but it is quite possible that snow will fall across southeastern Missouri while it is raining in central Missouri and possibly Chicago, Sunday afternoon, as the cold air wraps around and drops southeastward behind the surface and upper lows and warmer air flows northward out ahead of them.

Based on today's forecast storm track and intensity, here is my first snowfall forecast through Sunday morning:

Denver 3" to 6"

Wichita 5" to 8"

Kansas City 6" to 9"

Tulsa 3" to 5"

Oklahoma City 3" to 6"

Springfield, MO 5" to 9"

Columbia, MO 6" to 10"

Des Moines 3" to 6"

Moline, IL 4" to 7"

Chicago 2" to 5"

Milwaukee 2" to 5"

After this storm system passes, I do believe it will remain cold relative to normal for much of the eastern U.S. through next weekend taking us to the end of March. Appears April will start providing more of a Springish weather regime with warmer temperatures. Stay tuned.