Storm system leads to severe storms, tornadoes and blizzards in the Midwest

AccuWeather

AccuWeather's Damien Lodes and Anna Azallion break down the two parts of an intense storm slamming the Midwest on March 19 with both severe thunderstorms and heavy snow.

Transcript

00:00Hannah's going to be tracking the snowfall to the north and to the west,

00:03but I'm going to be watching out for that risk of severe weather here

00:05along this main line.

00:07So this is a very interesting and impactful, very strong setup here

00:10for this storm system.

00:12The reason why I say that it's kind of acting like an inland hurricane

00:15with multiple bands of severe weather.

00:17This first band out here in front, this is going to be the band

00:20that has the highest potential for severe weather.

00:22Now, I say that because this band is moving from west to east,

00:26but the winds in front of it are moving from east to west.

00:29And why does that matter?

00:30Well, these winds that are coming into the storm have lots of moisture.

00:34Moisture is fuel for these storms to keep going.

00:37The other thing I want to point out is that the directional difference

00:40between the winds coming into the storm and the winds from the storm

00:44are just enough to where they can create some low level rotation

00:48in the atmosphere, which could produce tornadoes.

00:50And the other thing I want to point out,

00:51having shown you this in a while,

00:53let's go and look at the lightning trends here for these storms.

00:55And as you can see,

00:56these storms are definitely maintaining their lightning intensity,

00:58which shows me that they are continuing to strengthen,

01:02if not maintain their strength over the past couple of hours.

01:05Now, that's important because that still shows that the inflow,

01:08the inflowing winds to these storms are sufficient enough

01:11to keep these storms mature and keep these storms ongoing.

01:15So that's that first band that I was talking about,

01:17this one right here with the higher tornado potential.

01:19But there's also a secondary band behind that one.

01:22And I want to point out this secondary band in particular, because this band,

01:27this one is primarily happening because it has all of the energy

01:31from behind it, from the center of circulation.

01:33And that's an important distinction, because that means that

01:36any of these storms right here that form in this area,

01:39pushing into eastern parts of Illinois,

01:41these are going to be prolific wind producers.

01:43These are going to be the types of storms that can produce the 50, 60,

01:46even 70 mile an hour straight line wind gusts.

01:49So we're going to be watching that very carefully.

01:51But in the meantime, these front storms right here,

01:53these are going to be the storms that primarily have the highest potential

01:55for strong winds, heavy rainfall and these storms to the south.

01:59I want to highlight these as well before we go.

02:03These are going to be the storms that have the highest potential

02:05of low level rotation to produce tornadoes.

02:07So if any storms produce tornadoes here in the next hour, it's possibly

02:10probably going to be one of these storms to the south.

02:13But in the meantime, and going from severe weather here

02:16for the first day of spring to tracking some pretty good snowfall there

02:20for the last day of winter.

02:22Yeah, you can see it just kind of on the edge of the radar frame there.

02:25But I want to start off with the storm reports.

02:28I've zoomed in mostly to Iowa here because I want to really focus in.

02:32There's a lot of storm reports

02:33and it's kind of hard to see what's going on on the board.

02:35And we'll focus on the blizzard reports.

02:37These are the dark blue boxes you see with little snow icon.

02:40And I've pulled up one of them about two thirty p.m.

02:44But visibility at one of the local airports here a quarter mile

02:50since eight fifteen this morning, we were talking about long term

02:54rapid reductions in visibility.

02:55This is not the only report like this.

02:58We've seen several blizzard reports throughout the day.

03:00We still have several areas under active blizzard warnings.

03:02That's all of these areas in pink here.

03:05Another look at the radar

03:06just give you an idea of where the snow is at this point.

03:09We've mostly moved through the Omaha Metro.

03:12We're south of Minneapolis.

03:13The snow is going to move into Chicago.

03:15So Chicago, you're getting hit with a little bit of a double whammy here

03:18with the severe kind of thunderstorms and then the snow coming in behind it.

03:23And of course, it's not just the snow that we're concerned about.

03:25It's the wind that's really creating the possibility of these blizzards.

03:29Looking at 51 mile per hour wind gusts at this point in Des Moines,

03:3232 in Minneapolis.

03:34The snow is focused a little bit further south of Minneapolis,

03:3745 mile per hour wind gusts in Omaha at this point.

03:40But we are expecting accumulating snowfall.

03:43We've seen snowfall accumulation.

03:44Some of those snow reports you saw on the board were a foot of snow,

03:47seven inches of snow, six and a half inches of snow.

03:50There's some areas here that are going to get 12 to 18 inches of snow

03:53when all is said and done.

03:55It's not a very large area, but so we're looking at a pretty impressive

03:58snowfall accumulation for this point in the season.

04:01And we have a lot of snow mixed with those wind gusts.

04:04That's where we get really bad drops in visibility with those blizzards.

04:08Let's take a look at future radar and how this plays out, because Chicago,

04:12you are going to see the snowfall by the overnight hours, 3 a.m.

04:16That's when we see where we're stopped on future radar right now.

04:19But as we fast forward to tomorrow, 8 a.m.

04:21is where we're stopped now.

04:22Michigan, you're the only ones left dealing with the snow.

04:25Everybody else will have cleared out by this point.

04:28And then we continue to play this out.

04:30We'll get another kind of burst of precipitation coming in

04:32as we head into the evening hours and into Friday.

04:34But nothing like this storm that we have been dealing with for today.

04:39We'll take a quick look at Chicago's winter cast here.

04:42What to expect?

04:43Not a lot of snowfall accumulation, just a coating to an inch,

04:45but all coming in the early morning hours.

04:48So you might run into some slick spots on the roads

04:51when you're heading out to school or work.

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