Quiet pattern for now; Snow returns next week

It’s a chilly morning across KELOLAND with low clouds over the new snow cover in northeastern SD. You can see the conditions as of 7am in Watertown below.

We’ve seen below zero temperatures in Aberdeen.

Snow totals yesterday ranged from 5-9″ near the North Dakota border yesterday.

Don’t worry about the flurries on radar this morning moving through KELOLAND. We don’t expect any major impact from this small batch of moisture. It is a visual signal, however, of milder weather trying to return to the region.

Futurecast shows the 40s returning to western SD today, with 20s and 30s in the east. A few passing snow showers may return to western KELOLAND tomorrow as temperature to “near normal” ranges for many areas. Don’t expect any drastic changes to the weather on Saturday.

Sunday will feature our next chance of accumulating snowfall, primarily focused once again on the northern half of KELOLAND. Temperatures could be surprisingly warm just to our south in Nebraska and Iowa, so expect a wide range of weather conditions across KELOLAND with more details to come. We also expect more active weather to enter the plains by the middle of the week. This is a classic pattern for March snow and we think this pattern fundamentally agrees with our thinking. The colder pattern should follow a “snowy” period that appear to be starting around March 8th or 9th.

The snow outlook map below appears to be fairly broad as the vigorous jet stream pattern energizes the pattern.

If you are a numbers person, the chances of 6 inches or more of snow next week are about 40-50% for many areas. Those numbers are high this early in the forecast.

The moisture outlook as a whole continues to be quite wet across states to our south. That’s a broader picture piece important to our spring outlook.

We also see good evidence to support a significant clash of airmasses next week across the central part of the nation. That’s another important factor to watch as we start to make additional decisions about the forecast in the coming days.