Winter storm to unleash snow, Arctic air

AccuWeather

The first true outbreak of Arctic air in the United States will accompany the first far-reaching heavy snowfall of the season from the Northwest into the northern Plains.

Transcript

00:00 Alright, we're tracking our upper low

00:02 coming into the northwest here today.

00:04 Pretty vigorous upper low.

00:05 Take a look at it on the on the

00:08 water vapor loop here and in fact

00:10 here it is just South of Seattle.

00:13 Now underneath this upper low,

00:14 a lot of cold air aloft.

00:16 We've had some thunderstorms across

00:18 northwestern parts of Oregon this morning.

00:20 Some rain in Seattle.

00:21 It's snowing in the Washington,

00:23 Oregon Cascades.

00:24 This is what's heading

00:25 toward the east northeast.

00:26 Already you could see an increasing

00:29 band of moisture in our water vapor loop.

00:31 Denoted by the white shading here from

00:34 Boise toward area South of Helena.

00:36 Now we've already had accumulating

00:38 and significant amounts of snow

00:40 in northern Montana today.

00:42 That'll leave,

00:43 but then as our upper low tracks

00:45 across northern Oregon and then

00:46 in the central Idaho this afternoon

00:48 tonight, watch how this snow picks

00:50 back up as we go toward the later today.

00:52 So the snow comes right back in

00:54 and Helena Billings Great Falls

00:56 as well and then it will continue

00:58 to make its way move to the north

01:00 and northeast.

01:01 This is a significant snowstorm

01:02 for the northern Rockies.

01:04 No doubt about it.

01:05 The snow will start to end

01:07 Thursday night into Friday,

01:08 but that will start streaking

01:09 across the Dakota.

01:10 So it's a wide area of snow and you

01:13 notice it's got some of the mountains

01:15 here in Montana and in the northwest

01:17 of Wyoming. You know,

01:19 we're looking at an amount of 12 to 18

01:21 inches and that's probably where you're

01:23 going to see your storm max of over 30

01:26 inches of snow, but it's not just in

01:28 the mountains lower elevations.

01:29 Several inches in Helena Billings

01:31 Great Falls, Montana Bismarck.

01:33 You're going to get into the snow

01:35 with a few inches of snow Fargo,

01:37 a coating to an inch or two,

01:39 and then that snow moves across the

01:41 southern part of the Canadian purse.

01:43 This is actually good news also for

01:45 the Mississippi watershed to get this

01:47 snow into the northern Rockies that

01:49 feeds into Missouri that feeds into

01:51 the Mississippi and any snow that

01:53 starts to fall into Dakotas and

01:55 Minnesota eventually that water will

01:56 help down in the word the Mississippi.

01:58 So it's good to get a snowpack

02:00 going this early in the season.

02:02 (clicking)

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