IT'S "CRUNCH" TIME BABY....

It's crunch time over the central Midwest as a winter storm makes its way into the area late Friday and Friday night. The complex system promises to bring widespread snows of 5-9", gusty winds and blowing snow. Of course hazardous travel is a given. Winter Storm Warnings or Watches are in effect for my area for Friday night.

This graphic from the NWS in Des Moines shows the expected timeline of the snow as it advances towards my area. Most of the accumulations in my region occur from late afternoon Friday through 8:00am Saturday.

The storm is tricky in the sense that two bands of snow will converge over the area Friday night. The northern band will weaken as it drives southeast and is deprived of moisture and lift by the primary storm to the south. As the southern energy strengthens a new band of snow should push north and enter much of my area from Missouri. That's what the latest EURO and NAM are showing. The GFS does not have that secondary surge of moisture or snow as heavy or as far west. When in doubt I roll with the EURO and as such, it looks like a nice snow for my area Friday night. Here's the latest snowfall forecasts, starting with the king (the EURO). I like this general solution.

The regional perspective of the EURO

The NAM

The 3k NAM

The GFS

The GEM (Canadian)

I can also tell you Thursday night's EURO was one of the snowiest I've ever seen for my local area the next 10 days. Lot's can change and will but just for kicks here's its 10 day snowfall including Friday nights storm. Again, I only show this to give you an idea of the potential on the table. This is meant to be taken as a trend indicator and not a forecast. Man, what a run! We'll see as we take it one storm at a time.

Okay, that's where things stand for the time being. The snow arrives late afternoon and ends around daybreak. Then we'll chill out and dig out the rest of the weekend. Roll weather...TS