Winter Storm: Dec. 23-25

A significant winter storm is making its' move at one of the busiest travel times of the year for the central and northern plains.  Not only will significant snowfall accumulations of 10-20 inches be widespread and cause for concern, but ice accumulations of a tenth to over a third of an inch are also possible across parts of KS/NE/IA/MN/WI.  There is also a concern of flooding for areas that will be on the warm side of the system, with significant rainfalls falling on already frozen ground.  For the best details I would look to your local NWS office and local media stations, as this system is just too widespread to try to get all of the details posted.

For the best idea as to what type of precipitation and how much areas will receive, I'll go ahead and post a few model images from this afternoon.  Expect the heaviest snowfall amounts to fall across eastern NE/SD/ND, western Iowa, and southern Minnesota Wednesday night through Thursday; and over western Iowa, Minnesota and western Wisconsin on Thursday night through Friday.  Ice accumulations are also likely to be a concern from eastern KS/NE through Iowa and into portions of MN/WI/IL as well.

Below are the images from this afternoon's model runs of the NAM and GFS, both are snowfall accumulations from today through Friday at Noon.

NAM Accumulated Snowfall

GFS Accumulated Snowfall