SOUTHERN ILLINOIS—Here’s the latest from the National Weather Service; looks like a bread and milk alert for some areas of our readership.
*** SIGNIFICANT WINTER STORM EXPECTED TO IMPACT THE ENTIRE REGION SATURDAY NIGHT INTO EARLY MONDAY MORNING. ***
Let’s start with the little preview system for Friday afternoon/evening. Compared to the weekend syste…this does not look all that impressive at this point. I do expect to see snow with some rain mixed in at times as we get into the evening hours Friday. Intensity will be on the light to moderate side at worst. I can’t rule out some minor accumulations of perhaps 1-2” and some slick spots, but this event should have a pretty limited impact on our region as it stands right now.
Now let’s move to the weekend storm…. it’s time to start really drawing attention to this weekend’s storm. The details are very much up in the air as always at this point. HOWEVER, one thing is VERY clear…no matter what form the precipitation takes in your area…this is going to be a major winter storm event with a high impact to travel.
TYPES OF PRECIP…pick your color…
In our viewing area, folks will see just about every possible type of winter weather.
In “RED ZONE” to the south, it appears to be mostly freezing rain…with some sleet..then a change to snow briefly before ending. The most significant impact at this time appears to be from freezing rain accumulation…which could be significant and result in downed trees and powerlines. It is likely there will be freezing rain with thunderstorms at times during the height of the event.
In the “PINK ZONE” which covers the Metro STL area..it’s a huge mess! A mix of snow, sleet and freezing rain…and one of which could be heavy at times…or even all at the same time. Thunderstorms are also possible in this zone. Considering the wide mix of precip types…forecasting a specific accumulation in this area will be nearly impossible. The key is to focus on the HIGH IMPACT of the event no matter how much of what ends up falling.
In the “LIGHT BLUE ZONE” which covers the northern tier of counties in my viewing area…the precip will be mostly snow…but with some sleet at times. Accumulations of at least 6” appear possible at this time in those areas.
In the “WHITE ZONE” which runs from KC up to near Quincy…it’s all snow with accumulations in excess of 6” definitely possible.
TIMING…
In our viewing area it appears the lion’s share of the winter precip will fall from late Saturday night through early Monday morning…and may come in several waves…with a brief lull in the middle sometime Sunday.
TAKE HOME MESSAGE…
This is the FIRST outlook for this storm. Details are likely to shift and be refined as I get a better handle on the exact placement of the cold and warm air up in the clouds that will be responsible for controlling the types of winter precip. However, as I said before, the message right now is on IMPACT…not exact types…and this has the potential to produce a crippling ice storm in some areas… and a heavy snow/sleet mix with major travel impacts in others.