AccuWeather's Damien Lodes and Anna Azallion break down the two parts of an intense storm slamming the Midwest on March 19 with both severe thunderstorms and heavy snow.
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00:00Hannah's going to be tracking the snowfall to the north and to the west,
00:03but I'm going to be watching out for that risk of severe weather here
00:05along this main line.
00:07So this is a very interesting and impactful, very strong setup here
00:10for this storm system.
00:12The reason why I say that it's kind of acting like an inland hurricane
00:15with multiple bands of severe weather.
00:17This first band out here in front, this is going to be the band
00:20that has the highest potential for severe weather.
00:22Now, I say that because this band is moving from west to east,
00:26but the winds in front of it are moving from east to west.
00:29And why does that matter?
00:30Well, these winds that are coming into the storm have lots of moisture.
00:34Moisture is fuel for these storms to keep going.
00:37The other thing I want to point out is that the directional difference
00:40between the winds coming into the storm and the winds from the storm
00:44are just enough to where they can create some low level rotation
00:48in the atmosphere, which could produce tornadoes.
00:50And the other thing I want to point out,
00:51having shown you this in a while,
00:53let's go and look at the lightning trends here for these storms.
00:55And as you can see,
00:56these storms are definitely maintaining their lightning intensity,
00:58which shows me that they are continuing to strengthen,
01:02if not maintain their strength over the past couple of hours.
01:05Now, that's important because that still shows that the inflow,
01:08the inflowing winds to these storms are sufficient enough
01:11to keep these storms mature and keep these storms ongoing.
01:15So that's that first band that I was talking about,
01:17this one right here with the higher tornado potential.
01:19But there's also a secondary band behind that one.
01:22And I want to point out this secondary band in particular, because this band,
01:27this one is primarily happening because it has all of the energy
01:31from behind it, from the center of circulation.
01:33And that's an important distinction, because that means that
01:36any of these storms right here that form in this area,
01:39pushing into eastern parts of Illinois,
01:41these are going to be prolific wind producers.
01:43These are going to be the types of storms that can produce the 50, 60,
01:46even 70 mile an hour straight line wind gusts.
01:49So we're going to be watching that very carefully.
01:51But in the meantime, these front storms right here,
01:53these are going to be the storms that primarily have the highest potential
01:55for strong winds, heavy rainfall and these storms to the south.
01:59I want to highlight these as well before we go.
02:03These are going to be the storms that have the highest potential
02:05of low level rotation to produce tornadoes.
02:07So if any storms produce tornadoes here in the next hour, it's possibly
02:10probably going to be one of these storms to the south.
02:13But in the meantime, and going from severe weather here
02:16for the first day of spring to tracking some pretty good snowfall there
02:20for the last day of winter.
02:22Yeah, you can see it just kind of on the edge of the radar frame there.
02:25But I want to start off with the storm reports.
02:28I've zoomed in mostly to Iowa here because I want to really focus in.
02:32There's a lot of storm reports
02:33and it's kind of hard to see what's going on on the board.
02:35And we'll focus on the blizzard reports.
02:37These are the dark blue boxes you see with little snow icon.
02:40And I've pulled up one of them about two thirty p.m.
02:44But visibility at one of the local airports here a quarter mile
02:50since eight fifteen this morning, we were talking about long term
02:54rapid reductions in visibility.
02:55This is not the only report like this.
02:58We've seen several blizzard reports throughout the day.
03:00We still have several areas under active blizzard warnings.
03:02That's all of these areas in pink here.
03:05Another look at the radar
03:06just give you an idea of where the snow is at this point.
03:09We've mostly moved through the Omaha Metro.
03:12We're south of Minneapolis.
03:13The snow is going to move into Chicago.
03:15So Chicago, you're getting hit with a little bit of a double whammy here
03:18with the severe kind of thunderstorms and then the snow coming in behind it.
03:23And of course, it's not just the snow that we're concerned about.
03:25It's the wind that's really creating the possibility of these blizzards.
03:29Looking at 51 mile per hour wind gusts at this point in Des Moines,
03:3232 in Minneapolis.
03:34The snow is focused a little bit further south of Minneapolis,
03:3745 mile per hour wind gusts in Omaha at this point.
03:40But we are expecting accumulating snowfall.
03:43We've seen snowfall accumulation.
03:44Some of those snow reports you saw on the board were a foot of snow,
03:47seven inches of snow, six and a half inches of snow.
03:50There's some areas here that are going to get 12 to 18 inches of snow
03:53when all is said and done.
03:55It's not a very large area, but so we're looking at a pretty impressive
03:58snowfall accumulation for this point in the season.
04:01And we have a lot of snow mixed with those wind gusts.
04:04That's where we get really bad drops in visibility with those blizzards.
04:08Let's take a look at future radar and how this plays out, because Chicago,
04:12you are going to see the snowfall by the overnight hours, 3 a.m.
04:16That's when we see where we're stopped on future radar right now.
04:19But as we fast forward to tomorrow, 8 a.m.
04:21is where we're stopped now.
04:22Michigan, you're the only ones left dealing with the snow.
04:25Everybody else will have cleared out by this point.
04:28And then we continue to play this out.
04:30We'll get another kind of burst of precipitation coming in
04:32as we head into the evening hours and into Friday.
04:34But nothing like this storm that we have been dealing with for today.
04:39We'll take a quick look at Chicago's winter cast here.
04:42What to expect?
04:43Not a lot of snowfall accumulation, just a coating to an inch,
04:45but all coming in the early morning hours.
04:48So you might run into some slick spots on the roads
04:51when you're heading out to school or work.