Monday Night: Cloudy/Snow flurries. Low: 6°F  

Tuesday: Cloudy/Snow chances. High: 11°F  

Tuesday Night: Snow. Low: 5°F  

Wednesday: Cloudy. High: 12°F  

Wednesday Night: Cloudy. Low: -2°F  

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General Discussion:  

Chances of snow stick with us over the next couple of days with the highest chances falling Monday night into Tuesday morning and Tuesday afternoon into the overnight hours. With it this week comes a bitter chill. Extra precaution should be taken when travelling early in the day due to both snow on roadways and hazardous cold.

Carrier, Iffrig 

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Forecasters: Carrier, Iffrig

Date Issued: 02/17/2025 5:00 PM CST  

Technical Discussion:  

Key Messages:  

• Snowfall totals 2”-4” through Wednesday. 
• Dangerous temperatures and wind chills pose high risk
• Hazards are expected to increase with the continued cold temperatures.  

An upper-level low pushing down from Canada is the main large-scale feature driving our local weather this week with its trough axis forming off to our west shifting the overall zonal flow to a more southwesterly direction, all while maintaining a persistent shift to the southeast. This upper level low extends down to the 500mb level and, in its shift south, is promoting the development of a line of vorticity that will move across the area throughout the day on Tuesday into Wednesday morning. As the low pushes further south on Wednesday it will bring with it a large area of vorticity though this is less likely to be impactful. Mid to low level moisture will stick around consistently until midday Wednesday, likely being affected by the initial line of vorticity but moving out before the main body of vorticity moves in along with the low. As this low moves though, significant cold air advection will as well bringing with it near record low (-6°F) temperatures contributing to the frigid conditions that we are expecting to be an impactful hazard over the next few days. 

The main source of uncertainty with this storm is how much snow will we actually get. As it stands now, the national weather service’s probabilistic snow exceedance product gives us a 90% chance of >2”, a 49% chance of >4” and an 18% chance of >6” of snow. Various other probabilistic models are torn with some predicting a fraction of an inch and others predicting 8-10”. The main factors that will significantly alter how much snow we get will be how early the upper level low pressure system pushes southwards and if a dry slot develops. This snow system will be moving mainly west to east with a small south component due to upper level motions pushing south. If that system moves south faster than anticipated it will severely impact our snow totals, conversely if it stays north for longer, there is a higher chance of higher snowfall totals. The presence of a dry slot would also significantly cut into our snowfall totals, as it did with last week’s storm. This would drastically reduce the depth of the atmosphere in which snowflakes could form, reducing the possible accumulation. Regardless of how much snow actually falls, slick road conditions and health issues due to the frigid temperatures are still significant concerns and proper precautions should be taken to ensure public safety.

-Carrier