Sunday-Monday-Tuesday Storm

Well we've been talking about it for awhile, but I'm going to throw out some preliminary numbers for you. These next few graphs are estimates from from a tool we use called Bufkit (check previous posts if you want more info on Bufkit) What you first need to know is this is a pretty complex system coming up from the South which is when we can expect some interesting weather. As to how to read these graphs, I made a key on the first on explaining what all of the colors mean. And as you can tell . . . the precip. type is going to be changing a lot over the next 48 hours. On the far right hand side of the graphs are estimates for how MUCH precip. will fall during each time period. The time is on the bottom but if you look close you'll see that time goes on from the right to the left... kind of backwards :)This first graph is a timeline for Aberdeen... you can see that the precip. starts around 7pm Sunday night, changes over to freezing rain for a brief period in the overnight and then changes back over to rain for the day on Monday. As far as rain total estimates go... you can see that for Aberdeen .745 inch is expected of rain. Then you see around 7am on Tuesday the type will switch again to snow... but just under 2 tenths of an inch of snow is expected. This graph is for Sioux Falls, you can see that not much freezing rain is expected Sunday night, temperatures should be too warm for a long period of freezing rain to occur so mainly rain is expected to last through Monday. Around 7pm Monday night however, temps will drop below freezing and a bit of freezing rain can be expected before tapering off by Tuesday morning. Drier air will work in for a brief period on Tuesday so no snow is expected then, but another moisture pulse will sneak in by Wednesday morning.

This last graph is for Pierre, you can see a strong section Sunday night of freezing rain to switch over to rain during the day again on Monday as temperatures rise. .895" of rain is expected before another switch in the overnight on Monday. Just about 3 tenths of an inch of snow is expected here.

Keep in mind this is just one model, and in my experience this one is a bit heavy on estimating precip, so expect somewhere under these estimates. With some of my preliminary forecasting... here are some estimates just for rain:

Aberdeen: .72"

Mitchell: .43"

Pierre: .76"

Sioux Falls: .68"

Watertown: .59"

Worthington: .40"

Yankton: .39"

I don't expect too much freezing rain from this system, but we could end up with .1-.2 inches of ice total accumulation. And after we switch over to snow, don't expect much from that either - under a quarter inch, so not something you'll need to break out the snow shovels yet.

Of course whenever we deal with freezing rain we have to be careful because a slight swing in temperatures can completely change the forecast, so we'll continue to monitor this one...

~KDLT Meteorologist Jesse Ritka