February 17th - Sunday Accumulating Snow Event

The pattern continues to roll on across the Midwest as we get into the middle of this month and a pattern that we highlighted nearly ten days ago that could be an active one regarding snow. That continues to hold true as another storm system is gaining some traction on model guidance over the last 48 hours that could bring a swath of snow across portions of the state on Sunday. As of now, this doesn't look to be a big time snow maker but it will be slow moving and have the potential to drop several inches of snow. 

I dig into some of the setup and early details below....

A fairly strong upper level low is forecast to come ashore California Friday evening and then move in our direction as we head through the first part of the weekend, crossing the Rockies Saturday afternoon and emerging into the plains on Saturday night. If you've been following along with past systems, you'll take notice that this track has sort of been the same general path waves or systems have taken which has led to our active pattern across the Midwest. 

Once again like previous systems, a favorable period of warm air advection will get going as the wave crosses into the plains as an area of low pressure develops at the surface across eastern Colorado and moves through the southern plains. This strong flow at low levels or warm air advection (in red) will aid in developing a widespread area of snowfall, as you'll see in the loop below. 

As mentioned above, a widespread area of precipitation (mostly in the form of snow to the north) would develop to our west Saturday evening across the central plains and then streak eastward into the Midwest and eventually portions of Illinois by early Sunday morning with snow then continuing through much of the afternoon hours. Nothing is set is stone but given some consistency and agreement among model guidance at this time, we figured it was warranted to give you a heads up on yet another shot of accumulating snow on a Sunday across our area. 

Details and timing will have to be ironed out over the coming days with the main one being the track of the surface low and also the strength as it moves into the Midwest. As it stands now, northern and central Illinois stand the best shot at accumulating snow (outlined below).