Our active weather pattern kicked off this past Saturday night and yesterday, as a clipper system brought precipitation to a good part of the state. We saw accumulations come in at the lower end of our range up north, and we have a nice blanket of snow over the northern part of the state this morning. Colder air is here, as we are seeing some subzero temperature readings this morning, mostly in the NW part of the state. However, this is just the start of what will be a very active week, with 3 more systems crossing the state between now and this coming Sunday. All of those systems bring snow.

Not much goes on through the daylight hours today, as we await our next wave of action. Winds will be mostly west-northwest, keeping cold temps top of mind. Our next clipper system comes in quickly overnight tonight and is gone by shortly after sunrise tomorrow morning. In its wake, we look for a coating to 2 inches of snow over a good chunk of the state, potentially all the way down to US 50. This is a very fast moving system, and will have a little bit of wind to blow the snow around just a bit. We should see sunshine by tomorrow afternoon.

We had been very concerned about a system coming up into the region for midweek this week. As with most strong winter storms, this one was going to be all about track. We are happy to report this morning that we look to dodge a significant bullet here, as the worst of the storm will stay south. Still, we do see our next batch of snow coming in for Wednesday morning through early afternoon. We look for a coating to 2 inches of snow over the northern half of the state, 1-3” of snow south of I-70, with most of that upper end of the range south of US 50. Like we said, the worst stays south of the river, and parts of northern KY can see 5-7 inches of snow. This track slowly worked south through the weekend, but we will monitor it through the rest of today and tomorrow morning to make sure it does not veer back north. This course alteration just again backs up our policy of staying away from throwing out snow totals on big events too far in advance. Keep that in mind as we talk about our 3^rd system for the week here in just a bit.

Dry, but cold weather is in for Wednesday night and Thursday, with high pressure setting up over northeast Indiana Thursday evening.

Behind that high, we have a significant system moving in for Friday and it holds over the northern part of the state all the way through Saturday midday. We are concerned about significant snows from US 24 northward, aided by some lake enhancement. Right now we see potential for 3-8 inches of snow from US 24 northward over the 30 hour period from Friday morning through Saturday noon. We expect basically nothing, maybe a coating to an inch or two totals south of US 24, and nothing south of SR 28. The reason we see nothing south of 28 is because we think temps have a good shot at making it to freezing or above in those areas for Friday and Saturday. This system is a good 5 days out this morning, so there is ample opportunity to see things change. However, this is not a system that is driven by “track” as much, as we think it is a feature born of warm air overrunning cold air. Add the lake enhancement, and it has a better chance at coming to fruition. At this time, our numbers are just working theories…and we will change and massage them as we move along. Still, it could put quite the exclamation point on the week.

We turn colder for the weekend with subzero temps in over a large part of northern Indiana Sunday morning. Dry weather is here for Monday through Wednesday, as the atmosphere resets following the active week.

So, while we miss the potential big system statewide at midweek, we still have some decent snow potential for the week, especially when you add up multiple little events. All, told, for the week from here forward (not including what snow we saw yesterday), we could see 8-12 inches of snow combined for the week from US 24 northward, 3-6 inches from US 24 to US 50, and a coating to 3 inches south of US 50. A nice, snowy start to the month of February. And, we continue to watch the end of week system for the north, to see if we can take those snow totals down just a bit. The map above puts that graphically – it shows combined snow totals from today through Sunday midday

The extended 11-16 day period the dry weather continuing for next Thursday the 15^th through Sunday the 18^th. However, a powerful low comes out of the central plains and moves across our region for the 19^th and 20^th, and it can bring half to 1.5” of liquid equivalent precipitation potential. Given the fact that we look to remain cold through most of the extended period, that would bring an argument of significant snow back in as we head toward president’s day.

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