Two Days of Tranquility Before Nature's Winter Blitz of Cold & Snow

Try saying that ten times real fast! Wow what a beautiful day it was yesterday and it all began with an amazing sunrise. Dena Flanagan did a great as always of capturing the big changes in our weather. Take a look at the progression of the clouds and see if you can find the sun pillar.

Hi Mike! I was just checking out your blog while I was uploading my pictures from this morning, I told my husband at 7:20 that it was going to be a gorgeous sunrise and it definitely was. I took these pictures to show him, but I thought I would also share them with you. The deep red color didn't last very long, so you had to be ready and waiting, the pictures I am sending to you are untouched, this is exactly how red it was. I even took these from inside my house through the window.....I caught some great footage on my Camcorder, which showed a very pretty Sun Pillar, which also didn't last long. Hopefully we get LOTS of snow in the next 10 days! I LOVE SNOW!!!!!!! The blizzard of '78, well I still talk about that one.......LOVED IT!!!!

Take Care and Stay Warm Mike!

Dena Flanagan

Wyandotte & Newcastle Rd

You can see the sun pillar if you look closely

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The show is almost over, but you can still see a faint sun pillar!

Thanks again Dena. The least I can do for you after you sending in this great montage of pictures is tell you about a big snowstorm on the way next week. But first things first! You can really see what appears to be a spotlight (sun pillar) emanating from the ground. This of course really is the sunlight reflecting off of the ice crystals in the cirrostratus clouds. The weather proverb, "red sky in the morning, Hoosier's take warning" did not apply in this case and is a good example of why even our beloved proverbs are not always correct. The red sky in the morning usually is a sign of moisture in the atmosphere and when clouds move in from the west to the east at our latitude it usually creates a nice red sky and can be a sign of an approaching front on the way which can bring precipitation. In this case, the high clouds were a sign of warmer air coming up and over our cold dome of air that has been stuck in place for much of the last two weeks. Here are the stats on Monon where Gene and Charlotte Austin are cheering on the red sky in the morning! The red sky in the morning means they are going to break the freezing mark for the first time in more than 200 hours! We did a nice fly through to Monon on the weathercasts last night as you see below. Stay tuned, I may zoom into a street corner near you in the near future.

There were no major fronts and not enough moisture in the atmosphere to produce rain or snow so in this case the red sky yesterday morning in essence was a sign of a tranquil weather pattern or a Pacific air mass giving our cold, polar air the boot! John Allen confirms this nicely with a great shot of last night's sunset. What a shot!

Beware.....next week this Hoosier proverb will work, especially when we wake up on Wednesday! Those red skies in the morning will likely mean a winter storm warning! I see a major storm system developing and moving our way. I am still awake here in the wee hours of the morning for a reason. I have been going back and forth with a couple of our weather bloggers who cannot sleep a wink worrying about if we will be getting snow next week. I thought I was the only one that did this but obviously that is not the case. Well they are going to sleep soundly after I messaged them back with the big news on the latest model runs! What I am seeing early this morning has the weather blogger snow geese (name given to those that absolutely love snow and blog 24 hours a day, 7 days a week) jumping for joy. I have been celebrating by cranking some 80s music! We now have confirmed a storm is on the way next week. Remember the timing still needs to be watched carefully. All of the big 5 snow hound models I like checking out before calling for a big snowstorm are barking up a storm! They are unanimous in confirming an Oklahoma or Panhandle low pressure forming and moving our way!! Here is the interesting pattern developing!


Even though nothing was showing up on Wednesday on any of the long-range models and there were plenty of folks giving up on any big snowstorms next week at several media outlets, I was not one of them. I had faith in the pattern not the models. The models usually do not perform well when you are transitioning into a different weather pattern and when your temperatures go from 80 degrees in Texas to near 0 degrees in Minnesota. But it is this temperature contrast you see above that allowed me to keep the faith and it is why we are in for an interesting 10 days.

This weekend will be very important to see exactly where the arctic boundary sets up. If we can keep temperatures in the teens I am confident we should have plenty of cold air in place for a big snowstorm. If we do not see a big push of arctic air to the south I will become more concerned about mixing issues or precipitation type issues. We do not need anymore ice but it cannot be ruled out since we are going to be right in the middle of the storm zone or clash zone between Spring and Winter. Remember we get our biggest snowstorms with temperatures near 32 degrees.

At least two of the five snow hound models have six or more inches of snow on the way with highs forecasted near 32. The other three are having storm track and feedback issues but have enough moisture to bring us a major storm.

So there you have it! Enjoy our warmest weather in a couple weeks today and Friday while you can. Have a great day and I better find a car wash for my poor car. If you do not like snow or cold weather I still think we will have a much warmer February with even some 60s not out of the question. My aim is to please everybody, but actually you can give nature all the credit and our wild Hoosier weather!

I will post the 5 different storm tracks on here by early Friday morning and update possible snow amounts on all five models as we get closer to our big snow day next week. The models will flip around like fish but we all know that they are just models and that is normal in this pattern. Bring it on!