Winter storm, heavy snow and ice storm warning

[WXBUFFJIM]

Good evening everyone. A busy night tonight and a busy day on Sunday. Getting right to the details, an overruning precipitation event is already unfolding from Chicago to the Quad Cities, Kirksville, MO and Manhattan, KS at this time. Precipitation in this part of the country is in the form of all snow. Meanwhile rain and freezing rain is developing across nothern Indiana tonight. Fort Wayne, Indiana is under an icestorm warning for tonight and Sunday for ice accumulation over 1/4 of an inch.

On Sunday, an aea of low pressure will track through central Missouri and south central Illinois and intensify as it does. On the colder northwest side of the low, snow, heavy at times will develop as colder air blows in on the back side. This heavy snow and colder air will be aided by a strong north and northeast wind, which will do two things. #1 wind chills will drop to dangerous levels, and #2 snow will blow and drift around in spots.

Breaking it down snow accumulation wise, extreme northern Missouri and into southeastrn Nebraska and southern Iows will likely see 5-9 inches as a total snowfall accumulation. However as this low pressure intensifies, so will the snowfall accumulations. The Quad Cities will likely see 6-12 inches of snow while Chicago potentially expriences 8-14 inches of snow, especially away from the lake where temperatures are colder. The downtown Chicago area could see less snow than western and northwestern suburbs due to the slightly warmer influences from Lake Michigan. However a significant snow is expected for even the downtown Chicago area, thus a heavy snow warning for the windy city.

After this snowstorm is over, expect tremendous cold air mass for the midwestern United States. Low temperatures Monday night will likely drop to near zero in Chicago and down to -5 in the Quad Cities. Some areas in North Dakota will likely drop to 30 degrees below zero during this cold arctic blast.

That's the latest for now. More updates on this dangerous winter storm later this evening. There are three reasons that makes this storm dangerous, heavy snow, blowing snow, and very low wind chills. Have a good evening.

Jim