January 17, 2020
GENERAL PICTURE:
Moderate to heavy snow for much of the northern Midwest later today into tomorrow. Moderate to heavy LES to follow the low in the UP and western lower MI snow belts. Quiet and cold early next week, with more snows possible in the north late next week.
1-4 DAY FORECAST:
Snows and some mixed precip is moving into the western Midwest this morning. It was snows in western IA and far SW MN, as well as northern MO. The area of snows will move northeast, intensify and expand as we go through the next 12-24 hours and then the system snows will be ending from west to east tomorrow.
I will refer you to the maps for the finer details of the snowfall with this system, but it looks like the heaviest totals will fall in MN and the LES belts of the UP, where 8-12″+ totals are likely. The system snows in the UP will be enhanced by lake effect tonight and most of tomorrow and that enhancement could lead to some localized, very heavy totals across the Keweenaw and possibly into the far eastern UP, where enhancement off of Lakes Huron/Michigan is likely to occur.
Cold air will drop into the Midwest behind the low and bring dry weather to most of the Midwest for Sunday into the first half of next week. The cold air will produce effect snows across the UP and western lower MI later Saturday evening, through Sunday and finish up from NW to SE as we go through the day on Monday.
Temps in this time frame will run below freezing for highs in most of the Northwoods.
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5-10 DAY OUTLOOK:
The LES belts will join the rest of the region in the quiet weather for Tuesday and Wednesday and then by later Wednesday into Thursday and Friday, some snows are seen with a pair of weak systems.
Very early estimates on totals from late Wednesday through Friday of next week are running in the 3-6″ range, with 6″+ totals likely in the UP, far northern WI and extreme northern lower MI. Some LES the end of next week looks to chip in an additional 2-5″ of snow.
Temps will fall to below average across the region as we work through the weekend and look to remain below average into the first half of next week.
11-16 Day Outlook:
The idea in this time frame sees temps to run close to average, perhaps even above. Given the time of the year, even with above average temps, the Northwoods would remain below freezing for highs.
As far as snowfall goes, there are no big storms indicated, but some weak systems could bring light to embedded moderate snows to areas from around I-80 north.