Insider Blog: Strong system starts the weekend warm before ending it cold with wind and snow

The ABC17 Stormtrack Weather Team is tracking a dynamic area of low pressure that is forecast to bring a chance for storms, snow, and deep cold into the region via gusty winds.

SETUP & TIMING:

A warm front will lift through the region on Saturday, lifting temperatures into the 60s across most of mid-Missouri if not 70s near the Lake of the Ozarks. South of the warm front, instability will build, mostly across southeast Missouri. As we track a cold front that is forecast to cross the region sometime midday Sunday, we'll need to monitor the potential for thunderstorms, and possibly an isolated strong storm.

Behind this cold front, temperatures will cool, and storm chances will lower, but rain chances continue, and behind a secondary push of cold air that will return Sunday evening, snow chances arrive.

Snow chances look to linger through the first half of the overnight before clearing Monday morning, when cold and wind will be the big story.

IMPACTS:

Impact potential is just beginning to come into better view as there is some question in the forecast surrounding timing of the cold front, but also moisture content behind the front. This uncertainty impacts the severe potential ahead of the cold front, but also the snow forecast behind the front. What is maybe less uncertain is that we stand to be quite windy and cold Sunday night into Monday morning.

SEVERE STORMS:

The severe threat is low as expectations are for the front to pass early enough in the day to limit a buildup of instability in mid-Missouri. The most likely scenario at the present is for severe weather to develop east of the region. Isolated strong storms may be possible in the east.

SNOW:

The snow chance is questionable as well. We are uncertain exactly how much moisture makes it into the wrap-around portion of this low. The northwest side of this will surge in cold air at the low levels and try to take advantage of what moisture is available, creating snow showers overnight. The potency of this snow is greatest in the northeast, nearest this low that passes by. We are also quite warm leading into the event. The soils are warm and still wet in spots, which may make ground temperatures slow to cool. It's possible that warm ground temperatures could contribute to more of a slushy accumulation at first. Still, winds will be dropping temperatures into the 30s and 20s while the snow falls, and eventually into the teens by Monday morning. This will eventually freeze anything that is initially slushy, but early warmth could greatly cut down on accumulations.

Snow accumulations currently look limited, with chances highest across the region for less than 2 inches of snow. It's entirely possible we only record trace to 1 inch amounts in the northeast. A less likely scenario does exist where we end up with such little snow that accumulation is avoided, but we are trending away from that scenario.

COLD & WIND:

The aforementioned cold will be less uncertain as winds rush in Sunday night. Wind gusts as high as 40-45 mph at times, with winds sustained around 20-30 mph will drop temperatures well into the teens by Monday morning.

Wind chills may fall into the low single digits early Monday morning.