Christmas Eve conditions this year? I think Yukon Cornelius said it best:
There shouldn’t be heavy snow, but around an inch could be whipped by winds gusting to 35 mph between the time the lights come on Christmas Eve and the time the kids wake you up Christmas morning.
Before then? Let me walk you through it quickly, with some basic national maps via weatherbell.com, if you are planning some holiday travel.
The active weather gets cranked up Monday. A deep trough of low pressure spins up in the Plains. Winds moving around the low counter-clock wise will turn our flow to a much milder southerly direction. Rain chances begin in the afternoon and evening, mainly north of Indy.
Even milder air and more moisture are waiting after midnight and into Tuesday.
A cold front arrives Tuesday night into Wednesday morning. We get more rain, possibly already mixing with snow in the western part of the state.
That transition should work eastward through the afternoon of Christmas Eve. Meanwhile, a secondary low rolls into Indiana. Now it’s getting good. (Or bad, depending on your point of view.)
Notice the lines getting closer together around the center of low pressure? Now it gets windy for Christmas Eve evening, and we go to all snow everywhere.
The best chance of accumulating snow – just like in the songs and stories – is Christmas Eve evening and overnight.
By 7am Christmas the worst of the system will be exiting, but a few flurries or snow showers could linger in the morning. The wind won’t totally relax until the afternoon.
Snow totals look to be around an inch, including some snow that is likely mixed with rain early, or melts as it falls.
Here’s the model’s depiction of the actual snow on the ground at 7am Eastern time on Christmas morn.
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[…] We could finish this month with less snow than we had in November! That total was 2.6 inches. So far this month: 0.1 inches. The forecast for Christmas Eve: about an inch. Get the Christmas forecast maps here. […]