WINTER PATTERN GETTING LOCKED AND LOADED

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While there aren't a lot of major winter storms brewing in the region, we are watching a series of clipper systems in the coming days that will bring chances of snow in addition to bitter cold and windy conditions. The storm track and fetch of cold air is really locking on the area. The average snow track likely sits just north of the core of the area, but chances for snow will remain especially late Tuesday into early Thursday.

Overall model guidance seems to have a good handle on the first clipper late Tuesday into early Wednesday morning. While likely not heavy snowfall, the timing with the Wednesday morning commute could lead to hazardous conditions not just with the snow accumulation, but also the blowing of the fresh snow with the strong wind gusts that come behind. As alluded to yesterday as well, the bulk of the now appears to be on the northern side of things - roughly along/north of Highway 20.

The HRRR is a bit farther south with the snow Tuesday evening into Wednesday, but similar in the somewhat limited snowfall amounts produced by the clipper.

The current snowfall probabilities of 1" or more of snow are about 70-80% in northeast Iowa, southeast Minnesota and southern Wisconsin. Areas like the Quad Cities, Cedar Rapids and Des Moines may just be clipped by some of this light snow.

Snowfall accumulation on the RRFS model is about 2-3" across the northern portions of the area with a somewhat sharp cutoff on the southern side.

EURO

GFS

A second clipper will likely be following in rapid succession Wednesday evening. Both the Euro and the GFS modeling are in good agreement with the timing and overall placement of this system - in this case a little farther south closer to about I-80. This clipper will additionally bring the return of even colder air and blustery winds.

Snowfall on the Euro is only about 1-2" again at best with this clipper late Wednesday into very early Thursday morning, and again it's a little farther south than the first clipper system, so this would have a better chance of hitting the Quad Cities region.

The model blend sends temperatures plunging late week into the weekend behind that second clipper with single-digit highs and lows below zero! Some of the coldest air of the season is lurking, and this may be just the beginning of a rather prolonged stretch of below-normal temperatures.

Analogs for late January continue to indicate high confidence in some very cold air. Temperature anomalies on the analogs are 10 to 15 degrees below normal, especially in the January 25-30 time frame. The coldest air relative to normal looks centered right around the Great Lakes region.

Teleconnections like the AO and NAO are trending several standard deviations below zero. These two are well in sync, and when that is the case, we typically see some of the coldest air in the winter. Notice the Ensemble mean (green line) and the control (light gray line) follow each other quite well - a sign of a rather high confidence forecast. The signature on the teleconnections continues into early February, so this hit of winter weather may actually persist for some time.

This supports the latest Climate Prediction Center outlook for weeks 3-4 with higher confidence in below-normal temperatures. Snow chances will depend on the exact storm track, but clipper systems are certainly possible that could start building some snowpack.

Have a great week, everyone!

-Meteorologist Nick Stewart