WINTER STORM LOOMS "BIG"

LIVE WINTER STORM BRIEFING FRIDAY AT 8:00PM

Friday evening at 8:00, myself and meteorologist Nick Stewart will do a special Facebook live briefing on the holiday weekend storm which will be knocking on the door. We'll have the latest warnings, watches, and snowfall trends. Join us Friday night for an in depth perspective on the storm you won't find anywhere else. TS

The morning suite of models is complete, and the big takeaway is no surprises or major changes, the winter storm is on for Saturday. Currently, a Winter Storm Watch is in effect for much of the Midwest, which will no doubt be upgraded to a Winter Storm Warning for my area at some point today.

The snow which begins tonight will fall into Saturday night creating hazardous travel conditions not only locally, but for many parts of the Midwest. This will be a widespread event.

Odds are at least 80 percent (higher than 90 percent in many spots) that snowfall will meet or exceed warning criteria.

Expected snowfall amounts of 6–10 inches should be sufficient to create major impacts, as shown in the recent Winter Storm Severity Index.

The raw model output shows significant snowfall amounts over all of my region. The numbers put forth are not forecasts, they are what official forecasts will be derived from. Look for consistency in amounts and placement. That's the key to a good forecast. We'll start with the official NWS snowfall model, which shows a range of possibilities that range from 8 to 15 inches locally.

There is a 10% chance of reaching the high end totals, which is more in the 17-21 inch range. That won't happen.

The low-end threshold is 2 to 9 inches. There's a 90 percent chance amounts will be higher than that.

For you dreamers of the big one, I did think it was interesting that the NWS model shows a 70% chance of a foot or more along the HWY 30 corridor. Those are pretty high odds!

Getting to the models, the most bullish on amounts remains the EURO. Using snow ratios higher than 10:1 (which is likely, especially north of I-80) it blasts my area with 11–14 inches areawide.

Reducing its output to 10:1 (which is not likely the whole event, even in the south) amounts of 8–12 inches are still in the table.

Doing the same with the GFS, we get the higher ratios over 10:1 that look like this.

Dropping to 10:1 ratios, the numbers look like this, a general range of 7–9 inches.

Here's some additional model output that has come in this morning.

The 3k NAM

The 12K NAM

The hi-res Canadian GEM

The screaming message is that all guidance is pointing at a snow event that in my opinion should yield amounts of 8–10 inches for much of the area. A mesoscale band could dump 12 inches plus in a localized swath, which for now seems focused on the region paralleling HWY 30.

We've got another day to fine tune the numbers but barring some major shift, confidence is high that a significant snow event is on the table. Watches will be upgraded to warnings. Speaking of that, I smell turkey. Time to gobble some up.

I'll have more this evening and again, Nick and I plan another Facebook live briefing Friday evening at 8:00. You will get information you won't fine anywhere else. Hope to see you then. Roll weather TS.