It is a White New Year's! Portions of Fulton County Close in on 6 inches of Snow!

Happy New Year! We may not have had a White Christmas, but we got a White New Year. Mark in Monticello said it is a beautiful wintry scene up in White County. The wet snow that came in last night is sticking to all the trees. The roads are plowed but coated with an icy layer because all that rain we had last night has frozen. We have had between 1 and 2 inches of snow over most of Tippecanoe County. Areas to our north have had a lot more snow. Portions of Newton, Jasper, White, Cass, Miami, Pulaski, and Fulton Counties have had between 3 and 5.5 inches of snow as of 10 a.m. with another 1 to 3 inches of snow likely during the day. So when all is said and done we will end up with snow totals of close to 3 inches in Lafayette to 7 inches in Rochester. Here are more snow totals as of 10 a.m.

Rochester 5.5"
Wolcott 3.5"
Rensselaer 3.5"
Monticello 3"
Logansport 3"
Francesville 3"
Medaryville 3"
Winamac 3"
West Lafayette 2.5"
Kokomo 2"
Delphi 2"
Lafayette 1.5"

Even though we are not expecting heavy snow amounts today, the snow that is falling is a much drier snow than we saw last night so we will have some blowing and drifting snow keeping roads slick through the rest of today and tonight. Be careful if you are traveling. Wind speeds will also pick up with wind gusts of 30 to 40 mph likely. Drifting snow problems will be more prominent in a line from Winamac to Logansport to near Kokomo. These areas will have heavier bursts of lake-effect snow today and will receive another 1 to 3 inches of snow. In Tippecanoe County we will likely see another inch of snow today.

We could have had a lot more snow but total snow amounts will end up close to the original forecast of 3 to 6 inches for most areas. This is pretty amazing considering how much different this storm behaved than expected. The temperatures were much warmer yesterday evening than expected costing us about 1 to 3 inches of snow. Instead of moderate snow we were stuck with a few rainy downpours. The second thing that kept us from seeing higher totals was the storm track wobbled about 40 miles farther north than expected. This track brought in a dry slot and kept the heavier snow well to our north. Just think what could have been. Well, this is what we could have had and it is probably a good thing we didn't because travel is treacherous across northern Indiana this morning and travel is not advised. Some areas near the lake could end up with a whopping 12" to 18" of snow!

Here are the highest totals in Indiana that I could find:

Mishawaka 10.5"
Wakarusa 10"
La Porte 10"
Elkhart 9"
Walkerton 8.0"
North Judson 8.0"