A strong storm system will track directly through the Region the next two days bringing rain, wind, and heavy snow to areas of the Midwest. Our forecast remains the same for us locally as the low will track right over NWI. The result will be mainly rain for us with a changeover to some wet snow possible as the system departs, but we’re not expecting anything to write home about in terms of snow accumulation.

It’ll be a different story to our northwest where we’re still expecting several inches of snow to pile up from northern Illinois into Wisconsin and Michigan.

Notice where that rain/snow changeover line will be for the event. Talk about tough forecasting for meteorologists in Wisconsin. There will be a narrow 35 mile wide band of snow with little to no snow outside of that thin band!

This system will also be a wind-maker, but surprisingly, I think the strongest winds will avoid us here in NW Indiana due to the path of the low. We’ll turn breezy at times with some gusty winds as the system departs, but overall we’re not anticipating any problems from the wind. The wind direction will be key, however, as it will veer out of the north late Saturday and Sunday so lakeshore flooding will become a problem along our northwest Indiana shorelines.

The biggest impact will be the rain. We’ll see it develop later in the day Friday and continue through Friday night into Saturday. We’ll get a break for a few hours during the day Saturday before the back side of this storm moves through at which point we may changeover to a rain/snow mix and eventually some wet snow at the end of the event Saturday night. Rainfall totals may exceed an inch in spots by Saturday night–so a decent rain, but flooding is not a concern as of now.

We will turn colder Saturday night and Sunday with temps dropping into the 30s and likely remaining there for the day Sunday. We have an active storm track that will continue through Christmas with several more storms lined up–we’ll keep you updated on all of them as always.