The first true outbreak of Arctic air in the United States will accompany the first far-reaching heavy snowfall of the season from the Northwest into the northern Plains.
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00:00 Alright, we're tracking our upper low
00:02 coming into the northwest here today.
00:04 Pretty vigorous upper low.
00:05 Take a look at it on the on the
00:08 water vapor loop here and in fact
00:10 here it is just South of Seattle.
00:13 Now underneath this upper low,
00:14 a lot of cold air aloft.
00:16 We've had some thunderstorms across
00:18 northwestern parts of Oregon this morning.
00:20 Some rain in Seattle.
00:21 It's snowing in the Washington,
00:23 Oregon Cascades.
00:24 This is what's heading
00:25 toward the east northeast.
00:26 Already you could see an increasing
00:29 band of moisture in our water vapor loop.
00:31 Denoted by the white shading here from
00:34 Boise toward area South of Helena.
00:36 Now we've already had accumulating
00:38 and significant amounts of snow
00:40 in northern Montana today.
00:42 That'll leave,
00:43 but then as our upper low tracks
00:45 across northern Oregon and then
00:46 in the central Idaho this afternoon
00:48 tonight, watch how this snow picks
00:50 back up as we go toward the later today.
00:52 So the snow comes right back in
00:54 and Helena Billings Great Falls
00:56 as well and then it will continue
00:58 to make its way move to the north
01:00 and northeast.
01:01 This is a significant snowstorm
01:02 for the northern Rockies.
01:04 No doubt about it.
01:05 The snow will start to end
01:07 Thursday night into Friday,
01:08 but that will start streaking
01:09 across the Dakota.
01:10 So it's a wide area of snow and you
01:13 notice it's got some of the mountains
01:15 here in Montana and in the northwest
01:17 of Wyoming. You know,
01:19 we're looking at an amount of 12 to 18
01:21 inches and that's probably where you're
01:23 going to see your storm max of over 30
01:26 inches of snow, but it's not just in
01:28 the mountains lower elevations.
01:29 Several inches in Helena Billings
01:31 Great Falls, Montana Bismarck.
01:33 You're going to get into the snow
01:35 with a few inches of snow Fargo,
01:37 a coating to an inch or two,
01:39 and then that snow moves across the
01:41 southern part of the Canadian purse.
01:43 This is actually good news also for
01:45 the Mississippi watershed to get this
01:47 snow into the northern Rockies that
01:49 feeds into Missouri that feeds into
01:51 the Mississippi and any snow that
01:53 starts to fall into Dakotas and
01:55 Minnesota eventually that water will
01:56 help down in the word the Mississippi.
01:58 So it's good to get a snowpack
02:00 going this early in the season.
02:02 (clicking)