A Return to Snow... Lots of Snow...

My wife and I arrived back onto U.S. soil on Saturday morning, at the rainy and unseasonably cold port of Tampa, Florida.  From their we left the airport in the early afternoon and arrived into the cold air of Minneapolis, MN by evening and then continued our drive back into northwest Iowa by the early nighttime hours.  Some light snow was seen over central Minnesota, but a few inches were left on the ground in southern Minnesota and northern Iowa.  This couple of inches are likely to increase quite a bit by midweek as a strong storm system has already forced Winter Storm Watches and Blizzard Watches to be issued.

A low pressure system will come off of the Rockies during the day on Tuesday, and arrive into the western plains states by Tuesday night as it continues to strengthen.  By Wednesday morning the low pressure system should be nearing the Ohio Valley, and has continued to strengthen overnight leaving a very strong pressure gradient across the northern Plains.  This pressure gradient will be responsible for widespread winds of 25-35 mph across the plains, with higher gusts upwards of 50 mph possible near the Mississippi Valley regions of MN/WI/IA/IL.  These winds will be a secondary factor with this system, as snowfall amounts will be significant across a large portion of the plains including portions of KS/NE/IA/MO/MN/WI/IL and perhaps even more areas beyond the Wednesday time frame.

This morning model runs continued with fairly consistent forecast of snowfall amounts for the plains states, and as this system does still have some time to finalize its' details I'll keep this post shorter with just a few map updates regarding snowfall amounts through Wednesday night.  Additional updates tomorrow and Tuesday as the system reaches the plains will contain more specifics regarding timing and snowfall amounts.

12z (morning) NAM Snowfall Accumulations

12z (morning) GFS Snowfall Accumulations