12/15-12/17 Early Next Week Potential Winter Storm Update #1

We continue to keep a close eye on a potential winter storm early next week across the Midwest that could affect portions of Illinois but a good amount of uncertainty still remains at this time among model guidance. I dig into the latest below, continuing to outline potential timing of any accumulating snow into the state but also continuing to stress the uncertainty and nothing is set in stone just yet. 

Our system of interest is still well out over the Pacific Ocean this afternoon and is a fairly low amplitude wave at that and this could be part of the reason model guidance continue to struggle and waffle back and forth on different solutions once it reaches the United States. The one thing we do know for sure is that this system will continue moving east over the next 24 hours and eventually turn southeast, coming ashore the west coast on Saturday evening. 

As we get into Sunday, model guidance remains in good agreement on the wave/system crossing the Rockies and inducing low pressure development across the southern high plains. It is what happens after that which is still in question. Below is a loop of an ensemble model, showing many different areas of low pressure (marked by the L's) so you can see there is still disagreement on the track of this system. The track (and strength) mean everything in determining what areas could get accumulating snow and potential significant snow totals if a strong system were to verify. 

**Below is just one model solution and by no means what is expected at this juncture**, it is simply just showing a loop of how this system **could** play out from Sunday evening through Monday night. Strong warm air advection east of the developing low pressure system will aid in precipitation developing somewhere across the plains later Sunday. As low level flow in the warm sector increases, it will be able to throw that moisture back into the cold air northwest of the northeast moving surface low. Any potential heavy snow would be during the day on Monday as that is when the low pressure would move through the region. 

Again, the takeaway from this article is just to continue to mention the potential for a sizable system and potential winter storm early next week, given the continued model disagreements. Stay tuned for continued updates over the next few days. The image below is our current thought on what areas to watch for potential of shoveable snow 

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