Forecast for Western/Northwestern WI

Forecast problems…Today the light snow, along with rather windy conditions with blowing snow.. Then a change in the Friday night/Saturday forecast time zone…. May be some heavy snows for the FA more on this is a few…Then the Arctic dump through Tuesday night.

***CURRENT CONDITIONS***

At 9 am Temps are in the middle to upper teens across the FA with cloudy skies and some areas of light snow…Winds have been ranging from around 6 MPH up North to 12 to 14 MPH Central and South.. With gusts from 17 to 22 MPH out of the South/Southeast….

***FORECAST DISCUSSION***

This forecast discussion will focus mainly on the possibility of heavy snow for the first part of the upcoming weekend…

1000/1002 MB low pressure is forecasted to track along the US/Canada border today this will drag a warm front through the area then a cold front through the area later today into tonight…. Light snow has already broke out and still thinking 1 to 3 inches of snow is a good bet see map from earlier forecasts….. So today temps will be warmer middle 20s tonight won’t be as cold with lows in the middle teens….

Friday night into Saturday night…
Last night ECMWF and GFS forecasted this storm system to remain well South of the area….GFS has been holding that track since we started to talk about this system…. Well now ECWMF and GFS are more North with the system…Both line up rather well… So now we are going back to the ECMWF model track that it had when we first saw this system appear. There is still some timing issues and strength issues to deal with…So here we go again…
ECMWF has a 1005 MB low pressure system over Western NE…then moves this low East/Northeast towards Southeast WI/Northeast IL… Really doesn’t deepen the low that much until its way East..However a 1041 MB high pressure will try to build into the area so pressure gradients will increase causing for a rather windy day on Saturday…GFS is a little slower with the same track….NAM model is a little South with the model ATTM The SREF model is in line with ECWMF/GFS….. With all that said it does look like we could now see accumulating snows in the FA…Still way to early to pinpoint where and how much… Will wait for more runs to see if the models keep trending North with the winter storm….One thing is a giving Arctic air will blast in behind this system still thinking temps will be in the middle teens below zero with a few spots hitting twenty below Sunday and Monday night… With highs having a hard time getting to zero Sunday and Monday…..