LATE UPDATE: Winter Storm Coming in Hot! Snow Totals Going Up For Many Early Sunday.
A MAJOR WINTER STORM in underway across the Nation's Midsection tonight with Blizzard Warnings posted for much of Central/Eastern KS, Southeastern NE and Northwestern MO. Further East, Winter Storm Warnings go into effect shortly for areas across the Middle MS River Valley, the Ohio River Valley, Central Appalachia and into the Middle Atlantic.
A potent low pressure system is expected to develop overnight across Northern Oklahoma tonight before quickly sliding east tomorrow with rain and STRONG STORMS to the south and a HUGH SHIELD of wintry precipitation to the north that includes heavy snowfall and the potential for damagaging ice as well.
While "all-modes" of precipitation area expected, the most concerning is the potential for damaging ice accumulations for areas in Central KS, MO, Southern IL, IN and much of Kentucky and into the Virginias.\
The latest Euro is still showing many areas over a half inch with some over three-quarters of an inch of ice. This would without a doubt knock down many trees and knock out power to many.
So how much snow?
After wrestling with the models for about three days now, this is my final "pre-storm" forecast for the Ohio River Valley and surrounding areas. At this time I see a very large gradient on both the north and the south side of the primary snow zone.
To the north, dry air is expected to really minimize totals for areas to the north of I-70 across Indiana and Ohio. However, the intrusion of warm air into the middle parts of the Atmosphere will lower snowfall amounts thanks to the generation of sleet and freezing rain instead. So generally in these areas snowfall will be less than 3-6" with little to no snow expected for northern IL and IN as well as south into Southern MO and KY.
However, there will be a "sweet spot" in the middle that can expect some very heavy snowfall on the order of 6 to 12 inches for many located to the north of the St. Louis Metro area between I-64 and I-70 across Southern IN, OH, WV and VA.
Final Thoughts
For many, this will be the biggest winter storm in several years. The amount of snow in the morning may surprise many and even though we will transistion to a sloppy period of sleet, freezing rain and drizzle later in the day on Sunday for many across the Lower Ohio Valley, this will be a long event with snow returning as the main mode of precipitation by morning on Monday.
At the end of the day, this will be a high impact storm and will have lasting impacts with the amount of cold coming in behind it.
I'll be back with a full-suite of updates tomorrow on my primary social media channels on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.
In the meantime, stay warm and stay safe.
Jeremy Kappell
Meteorologist, Writer, Journalist
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