The current thinking of the Weather Now Storm Team is that 3″ to 5″ of snow will end up being the storm total for the Omaha Metro with this recent event. Of course that amount is not outrageous, but throw in wind gusts above 30 mph for TUE aftn. and evening, and the situation does become a little hazardous. Wind chill values by Wednesday morning (lets say 7 AM for example) will approach -25 degrees in Omaha, some locations may see wind chill values slightly colder than that across the KETV coverage area.
We are lucky! Yes, I said it, we are lucky! The mess that parts of Missouri, eastern Iowa and Illinois are going to go through makes our forecast seem somewhat nice. Even farther south, the Dallas airport was forced to close due to icing, this lead to the cancellation of all sorts of flights. Blizzard warnings line up from northeast Oklahoma and stretch all the way into the Great Lakes region. Columbia, MO may see 14 to 20 inches of snow by Wednesday morning, not to mention the fact that winds will vary in the 25 to 35 mph range.
2 feet of snow is likely in Chicago by Wednesday afternoon. Wind gusts tonight may approach 50 mph there. On the other end of the spectrum, tornado watches were issued earlier today across parts of the southeastern United States and severe weather will continue to be an issue into the Tennessee Valley this afternoon. Travel will become impossible throughout portions of the central plains and upper midwest later today!
So in a way, we are lucky! Thankfully we are not dealing with the mess that a Columbia, MO or Chicago, IL is going to experience. At the same time, our weather is still not very good and I ask that all of you take a little extra time and hold back travels if possible.
