Active Weather Through The Week
Hello and happy Monday everyone, hope all is well on this Presidents’ Day (Washington’s Birthday). We’ve got an active week shaping up across the nation, several impulses of energy will be moving in from the Pacific this week with heavy rain potential across the Deep South and snow chances across the northern half of the nation.
National Watches and Warnings
The watches and warnings map across the nation looks quite a bit more active than it has in weeks past. Our first storm system is kicking up wind and snow showers across the middle part of the country. In fact, 60mph wind gusts along with a couple of inches of snow could produce near white-out conditions across northeastern Colorado.
Snow Drought Areas Getting Snow This Week
For all the winter lovers out there in the Upper Midwest, get ready for some snow! This is our first round of snow that will have some folks shoveling in spots. Winter Weather Advisories have been issued for spots along the international border until Tuesday, where 3″ to 5″ of snow may be possible.
MN Snow Forecast
The updated forecast models are still showing a heavier snow swath across eastern ND & SD and into northern MN, but a secondary snow swath is showing up across eastern Minnesota and west central Wisconsin… this too could be a shovelable snow.
Additional Storms This Week
The upper level vorticity map, which shows areas of disturbed weather, show 3 different systems that could possibly bring inclement weather to the middle part of the country through the end of the week.
5 Day Precipitation Forecast
The 5-day precipitation forecast shows another dose of heavy rain across the Deep South through the week, but a majority of the nation’s precipitation will fall across the northern half of the nation through the end of the week.
Extended Snow Forecast
The longer range GFS forecast model has several inches of snow forecast to fall across the northern third of the nation through the end of the week… Keep in mind that this forecast is likely to change, but folks in the northern tier of the nation, who up until now haven’t had a whole lot of wintry weather, will likely get more snow this week than what we’ve seen in the past several weeks!
Easing the Drought
The good news here is that we are easing the drought quite a bit in the Deep South where SEVERE and EXCEPTIONAL drought conditions have been in place for several weeks/months.
Mardi Gras on Tuesday
Mardi Gras is on Tuesday (Fat Tuesday) the day before Lent and the forecast for New Orleans calls for cloudier conditions, but it still looks mild with temps around 70F.
Extended Forecast
Thanks for checking in, have a great rest of your week!
-Meteorologist Todd Nelson-