Indiana's Jackpot Snow Total Hits 16.3" and Counting

I am looking for the real jackpot of the storm and have found it! Just two miles north of North Webster in Kosciusko County they had 16.3 inches of snow with another 1 to 2 inches of snow on the way. So there you have it! We will have snow totals up near 18 inches after all! This vicious storm did live up to its name and on the map above look for the stars. These were the areas that reported thunder snow last night. We had thunder near Williamsport, Indiana just after 12:30 a.m. for about 5 minutes and some folks near Odell thought they may have heard thunder close to 1 a.m.

It was a memorable December storm and I want to thank everybody for all the support over the last several days as the storm was developing and especially during and after the storm. You kept me fired up throughout the night last night thanks to your nice notes, great pictures and storm information. It is not easy being a meteorologist sometimes during these big storms because you look at tons of constantly changing weather data.

Your weather watchers and viewers become your most valuable assets along with Live Doppler 18 during big storms because you get real-time data that tells you what is really happening. The great pictures you send in show exactly how this storm is impacting you. This is invaluable and helps our weather team gear our forecasts for what will help you and what you need to know to ride out the storm. Not even the best weather models can replace people. You were my eyes and ears and thanks to your reports we were able to stay ahead of this powerful storm that certainly had a mind of its own. There is a state of Emergency now in Grant County where they had about a half-inch of ice and then a half-foot of snow. Travel is only allowed for emergencies. None of our maps showed this happening but we got our first signs of trouble early yesterday afternoon from weather watchers in Boswell and Frankfort just after a huge National Weather Service conference call that did not focus much at all on the ice but snowfall. So we had to quickly adjust and move forward. This was possible because of you. Thank you!

I also wanted to thank all of our staff and weather team for working around the clock to keep the public informed. Gina Quattrocchi somehow drove into work this morning during the worst part of the storm to make sure we had all the closings and cancellations for you. She took hundreds of calls by herself from 4 a.m. to 8 a.m. and did not complain to a soul! Here at TV-18 we may not have the most fancy equipment in the world like the bigger stations, but we have great people that more than make up for it.

Now back to weather. Here at home our roads will slowly improve during the day but drifting will continue through the early evening and we have an icy layer on the roads that compacted that will continue to make travel tough with temperatures tonight falling to near 10. Thanks again for the great pictures. Keep them coming and our weather team will show as many as we can over the next several days and here on the blog. I am going to go spend time with my family and rescue my wife from our 3 wild kids. I cannot wait to take them sledding! Now I finally get to play! Here are a couple pictures for you before I head home.

A Winter Wonderland in Monticello!

Can you find State Road 18 & I-65?