Action 3 News Weather Blog

Our next winter storm is on the way! Winter Weather Advisories have been posted from Noon Thursday until Noon Friday for Omaha and surrounding areas. The sequence of events will unfold as follows…patchy fog and freezing drizzle will develop in spots overnight into early Thursday. As we head through the day Thursday we will see a wintry mix of sleet, rain and snow as temperatures warm to 35. Everything turns to snow late Thursday into Friday Morning with snow accumulations of 2 to 5 inches expected. Flurries will linger into Saturday with another shot of lighter snow on Sunday.

Our weather has been very active so far this winter to say the least. The latest storm will pass just to the south of the area tonight and Friday. If you are planning to travel in that direction stay tuned to the weather forecast for a lot of snow and ice across the Central and Southern Plains into the Midwest. For us it has been a very quiet week and that will continue into the weekend. Our biggest concern is the cold temperaures the next few days but nothing like we saw a couple of weeks ago. Our next chance of snow will arrive Monday but looks to be a quick shot with minor accumulations.

Hello all,

Just a quick update on our weather and the forecast into the weekend. We are actually in a bit of a break from an active weather pattern across the country. There has been severe weather in the Ohio River Valley today and already Winter Storm Watches are posted across the Dakotas for the next storm. Here across the metro we need to look out for more fog and slick spots tonight into Friday Morning. Our next storm system is still forecast to move in late Friday into Saturday. This time around the track will be farther north and brings us breezy conditions and rain to start the weekend. In fact, high temps will be in the 30s Friday and in the 40s Saturday. We will see some snow out of this system Saturday Night through Sunday Night but the worst of the snow will remain north.

Good Morning, Everyone!

Depending on where you live… you either didn’t see anything of issue or a full-blown ice storm.  The range between the two may be as little as 50 miles.  The surface temperatures since rain started to fall late yesterday evening determined the severity of the freezing rain event.  As of 10 am, the reports of ice accumulations from the National Weather Service I have is as follows:

Audubon, IA – 0.5″

Oakland, IA – 0.4″

Harlan, IA – 0.3″

Onawa, IA – 0.25″

Little Sioux, IA – 0.25″

The immediate Omaha metro seems to have experienced icing confined mainly to untreated side streets, parking lots and sidewalks.  The Omaha icing appears to have been localized since overnight low temperatures (eyeballing the overnight surface observations out of Millard, Offutt and C.B.) bottomed out at 32°/33° which would’ve been MUCH worse if temps fell into the upper 20s as I originally forecast.

The worst of the icing occurred north and east of Omaha where temperatures fell into the upper 20s overnight.  You can see a loop of the surface weather observations (temperatures are in red) between 10 pm and 10 am CST here:

http://www.rap.ucar.edu/weather/surface/displaySfc.php?region=dsm&endDate=20100120&endTime=16&duration=12

Here are liquid equivalent (or rainfall) reports from 6 am Tuesday through 6 am Wednesday CST, from the National Weather Service:

It appears that the heaviest of the precipitation occurred over much of central and western Iowa with precipitation totals of at least 0.50″!  Keep in mind that the time range of the image included precipitation that occurred before the freezing rain began yesterday evening.

For the remainder of the day today, look for some leftover patchy drizzle and patchy freezing drizzle.  Overnight, watch for some patchy black ice as low temperatures will fall into the middle/upper 20s in the Omaha metro, so any puddles of water that occurred as a result of the rain and snowmelt from the ice event will become frozen.

Looking ahead…our next round of precipitation will occur over the weekend.  We’ll see mostly rain from late Friday night through Saturday, but there is a possibility of a rain/snow mix or just snow on Sunday.  The 1200 UTC GFS shows a track of the surface low still taking the potential heavy snow well to our north across the Upper Midwest.  We’ll refine our forecast for the weekend tomorrow and Friday, but this weekend system appears to not be a big snow event for our neck of the woods.

Have a great rest of your day and take it easy with the patches of ice out there!

-C.T.

CT gave very good detail with the sounding and the type of situation we are in. Not much has changed and the going forecast still looks good. Just a quick update on the advisories and warnings from this evening. Omaha is now under a freezing rain advisory with an ice storm warning just to our north and east. Temperatures will slip just under the freezing mark tonight and back up to 32 on Wednesday. Watch for slick spots to develop on exposed surfaces and untreated surfaces especially later tonight into tomorrow morning. The worst of the weather looks to be north and east of Omaha during this time where temperatures will be a few degrees cooler.

Ryan