Jan 17th-18th Potential Late Week Wintry System Growing Interesting

After a strong storm system brought a variety of weather to the state this past weekend, we will see a bit of a break in the action (outside of a few weaker disturbances the next few days) before all eyes will turn to later this week and the beginning of the weekend. Over the last couple of days, model guidance has shown a system crossing the Rockies and coming into the Midwest on Friday. Model guidance continues to hit home that this will have the potential to produce wintry precipitation, including accumulating snow here or close by along with rain as well. Some initial thoughts follow below...

Much like our last system, this one will take a similar path (in blue below) crossing the northern Pacific Ocean over the next few days before eventually coming ashore California on Wednesday night into Thursday morning. So for this reason, we could see some back and forth model guidance waffling on solutions until then. 

As the system crosses the Rockies later Thursday early Friday, low pressure will develop inducing a strong period of warm air advection (in red) across much of the plains and into the MIdwest, including here in Illinois. This will aid in a large area of precipitation developing initially to our west across the central plains Friday morning as you'll see below. 

**The animation below is just one models solution and by no means what we are calling for at this range, just showing a possible outcome** 

The general setup though does favor a large expansion of precipitation like shown below. With sufficient cold air over portions of the state early on thanks to the very strong surface high pressure system, precipitation could be in the form of several different precipitation types from freezing rain to sleet to snow. Right now, the time-frame on this system is from Friday morning through late Friday night, potentially into Saturday morning. Again, we are still 4+ days away from this system but the potential is there for widespread wintry precipitation including accumulating snow. 

Stay tuned for continued updates on this system as we draw closer to the end of the week. This system certainly has some potential to be a headline maker but that is all it is right now, potential. Articles and forecasts will continue to be pushed out, especially if this looks to be significant across Illinois on Friday. 

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MP