In case anyone is interested....
QUICK PATTERN OVERVIEW:
No major changes. Temps will slowly be falling across all of the Midwest in the next day or two, with a bit of light snow to fall with a system tonight and tomorrow. The weekend and early next week looks to bring some LES, with little in the way of snow elsewhere. Then as we head into the end of next week there are ideas of a major arctic air outbreak to unfold across the region, which may even have a fairly sizeable snow storm on it’s front side.
1-4 DAY FORECAST:
Things will be fairly quiet across the region today, but a new low looks to move into the far west overnight and then through the rest of the region tomorrow and by that time temps will be cold enough for the low to produce snow in much of the Midwest. It looks like the main area of snow with this feature will play out across IA, MN, WI, the UP, northern IL and lower MI. Totals in most cases will be around 1-4", but some locales in southern WI, northern IL and much of lower MI could see more than 4" fall.
Things will then quiet back down as we head through Friday and into the weekend. A few scattered snow showers could occur in that time frame, but outside of the LES belts, most accumulations will be around an inch or less for Friday and Sat.
Within the LES belts of the UP and NWL MI, things will get going later Friday, with not much accumulation during the day on Friday and maybe an inch or two overnight Friday night. Snows should fall at a light clip, but fairly steadily by Saturday and accumulations from Saturday morning to Sunday morning will likely be in the 1-4" range in most of the UP and NWL.
As mentioned, temps will be slowly falling across all of the Midwest in the next day or 2, with the freeze line staying south of the Northwoods from here on out. By Friday, the freeze line looks to be sitting down in the central Midwest, where it should stay into the weekend.
5-10 DAY FORECAST:
The forecast for Sunday and Monday sees the setup remaining the same as it was on Saturday. That being an upper air trough across the Midwest. This will likely produce some scattered snow showers across much of the Midwest, but nothing that would produce much more than an inch or two in most cases.
The LES belts of the UP and possibly into western lower MI will likely continue to see some fairly steady snows fall off the lakes Sunday and Monday. Again, maybe not feet of snow in these locales, but a fairly steady light to occasionally moderate snow should occur and bring totals of around 2-6" every 24 hours or so, with some locales potentially seeing even more snow than that.
As we head into the middle of next week there looks to be a brief breather across the region. Then by the end of next week and following weekend, the models are still onto the idea of a pretty strong surge of arctic air to dump into the central US, including the Midwest. However, the models are still in disagreement as to if there will be a storm that spins up ahead of the arctic air. One idea is that a storm would develop in the southern Plains and track into the central Midwest, bring heavy snows to areas of MN, IA, WI and the UP, while other ideas call for just an arctic front to roll through and bring some snow showers, but nothing in the way of major snows. At this point I am still not going to choose sides just yet. However at this point I am leaning slightly in the direction of the no big storm, just an arctic front and very cold air to follow. Hopefully by tomorrow, the models will have their differences worked out.
Arctic air looks to be a pretty solid bet for all of the Midwest by the end of next week and into the following weekend at least. That arctic air would put the LES machines on hyper drive by later next week and into the MLK weekend and there are signs that the 11-16 day period would keep a strong NW flow in place to produce more heavy LES as well as the potential for some clipper snows across the rest of the northern ½ to 2/3rds of the Midwest. I guess the bottom line is the end of next week and especially into the following weekend and the week of Jan 21-25 is looking very wintry across the Midwest.
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