First accumulating snow of the season for some areas in early November

AccuWeather

From Nov. 8-11, the first measurable snow of the season will fall from the Midwest to New England.

Transcript

00:00Well, the snow fans are about to get a little more excited in parts of northern Indiana,

00:08Michigan, and if you're in the northeast and you're near or west of the spine of the Appalachian

00:13Mountains, you're probably going to enjoy the transition into early next week as snow moves in.

00:19We're going to take a look at our forecast feed, add some model data, and we'll look at the reason

00:24behind the potential for maybe even some lower elevation snow in northern Indiana and parts of

00:28southern Michigan, and we'll look at our official forecast as well with a clipper and then some lake

00:33effect to follow. Hey, it's getting to be that time. More and more of Alaska is seeing significant

00:38snow cover, and it's deepening. Here we have Adeptific Pass from the FAA network of webcams

00:44there, and it's looking good, if you like snow at least, and as we take a look at the forecast

00:49locally, closer to home, some of you may be tuned in from Alaska, and we appreciate that, but if you're

00:55tuned in from maybe Chicago, maybe Detroit, maybe one of the bigger cities, Minneapolis in the north

01:00central U.S., we have you in the blue zone here. This is an area where between Saturday, Sunday,

01:05and Monday there's some potential for at least maybe a coating of snow, and some of you will see

01:11more than just that. It's going to get a lot colder behind this, and the first thing we really

01:15want to dig into is an Alberta clipper that's going to be zooming through the north central U.S.

01:20on Saturday and Saturday night. Now, it's going to bring some limited snow potential to some of

01:25these areas, but there's an area where the anatomy of the storm is right for some enhanced lift in

01:32the atmosphere that could bring us a little bit of a jackpot situation here into some areas around

01:38maybe northern Indiana, maybe near South Bend. Now, Notre Dame is home on Saturday evening. You're

01:44probably going to be dealing with rain, cold rain during the game, but after game time, or perhaps near the

01:49end, some snow is going to begin to mix in, but we're looking at an accumulation later on. Also,

01:54behind that system, we got Lake Effect that begins to set up shop here, and just through Sunday night,

01:59before the Lake Effect would begin down this way in Pennsylvania and upstate New York, we are looking

02:04at 6 to 12 inches of snow in areas near south of Unising, Michigan, and also into an area near the

02:10stem of the Keweenaw Peninsula. So, before we get into the model data for this, I just wanted to give you a

02:14little bit of a preview. South Bend, we're forecasting 3 to 6 inches of snow in South Bend

02:19Indiana, kind of a bold forecast, and there's going to be some Lake Effect snow that follows.

02:24So, this is a forecast from late Saturday night, technically 2 a.m. Sunday, into Tuesday morning,

02:30or late Monday night, from the Clipper, plus some Lake Effect that will follow in that area.

02:36So, let's take a look at this. We have two more fronts to track. This first front is the Friday

02:41front. It's a low amplitude trough. You can see the depth of the trough. It digs down to approximately,

02:48maybe, areas around Cumberland Gap there in southeast Kentucky, and not much deeper south

02:54beyond that. So, again, that's kind of a low amplitude trough. There's a front tide to this,

02:58but the main event, watch what happens behind that really, really deep dip in the jet stream. This is

03:03a high amplitude trough. In other words, we're going to see this dip go all the way down to the gulf

03:09with some, if you look at the wind, now we're looking at the 500 millibar map showing these bright

03:15colors of vorticity. It's a measure of spin in the atmosphere, and if that's to your west,

03:19and it's coming your way, you're going to see extra lift in the atmosphere, producing rain or snow.

03:23You can see, where is the air coming from? 20,000 feet up there. It's coming almost directly from

03:28the north, and even if you're down in Texas, it's coming from Montana. So, this is a cold wind

03:34direction, and it's going to bring us some pretty exciting weather, if you like snow or cold.

03:38Now, if we take a look at the GFS model, here's front number one. This is the front moving through

03:45Friday, and it's not very exciting. Most of the moisture is in advance of it, so it's mainly rain.

03:51And for the northeast, it scoots through Friday night, Saturday morning, and again,

03:55the bulk of the moisture is in front of northeast, well, east, I should say, of the front. So,

04:01there won't be much moisture around when it gets cold enough for any stray flakes to the north.

04:06But what we do want to look at is the second system, and here it is. This is our Alberta Clipper

04:11scooting through parts of the Midwest, and by Saturday night, Sunday morning, here it is.

04:16My giant L is kind of blocking it out, but it's going to be centered somewhere near Lake Erie.

04:21So, we could track this system, and as we track this second one through, look at Iowa,

04:27maybe places near Davenport. There might be a couple of snow showers in the air. And again,

04:32I think that the GFS is probably hinting at maybe a little bit too bold of the snow signal,

04:37but there will be some rain-snow mix, and the ground's going to be warm, so there's going to

04:41be a lot of melting. Here's the European, which I like the way this parameterizes the precipitation

04:47type. It probably shows a little more accuracy there in the way that plays out. But what we do

04:53want to point out, there's a time Saturday night and Sunday morning when the center of low pressure

04:58is going to be passing down to the southeast of central Michigan. There's a little zone here

05:03in northern Indiana and into Michigan where the vertical velocity, the lift in the atmosphere,

05:0810,000 feet up in the atmosphere, 700 millibars. You're going to see some bright colors here.

05:13Look at that. This is a pretty good thrust of upward-moving air here, and that's an area where

05:19you're going to see some pretty good snowfall, or in north-central Indiana, maybe rain production

05:23if you're south of South Bend, maybe near Fort Wayne. It's just something to keep an eye on.

05:27The dynamics are going to be such that we could see a pretty good burst or thump, as Bernie

05:31might say, of snow on Saturday night to Sunday morning. Look at that in southern Michigan.

05:36So the European model, before Lake Effect, brings three, four inches of snow in areas near

05:41Ann Arbor and points west there into parts of southwestern Michigan. Then, look at this,

05:47Lake Effect cuts in, and there you're seeing double-digit snowfall. We don't want to take this

05:51totally gospel, but there could be 10 to 12, 14 inches of snow that this is hitting at in

05:56parts of Indiana, thanks to a nice band of Lake Effect snow from Lake Michigan.

06:00Now, here is another depiction, and you can see potential for five, six inches of snow up

06:04in central Michigan. And just a quick glance farther down the line, a little preview.

06:09There's going to be some Lake Effect snow in the interior northeast that follows this.

06:13The immediate lake shore may be a little bit milder, but if you head inland and south,

06:17you'll see greater accumulations.

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