Two different shots of winter weather look likely in the next five days on the Central/Southern Plains with some significant travel impacts expected. The first wave will pass through tonight and tomorrow across Colorado and Kansas mainly with the second shot further south, impacting Texas/Oklahoma/New Mexico. 

One model’s depiction of snowfall early tomorrow morning as a strong but compact system moves through the region.

Tonight-Tomorrow

A storm will track across NE New Mexico and SE Colorado into Western Kansas dropping several inches of snow into tomorrow morning.
  • Up to a foot of snow is possible in localized areas.
  • There will be significant impacts on I-25 and I-70 as well as areas east and south of those interstates.
  • This will be the type of snowstorm that grinds things to a halt for a day or so as the storm passes.
  • This storm comes on the heels of another system that dropped plenty of snow already on eastern/northern Colorado.

The bottom line: Winter is finally here in the middle of the country and expect some big impacts starting today/tonight.

The Euro model’s depiction of the large storm system moving through the Southern Plains early next week.

Tuesday-Wednesday

A second storm will swing into the region with a likely much more south track with snowfall as far south and east as Southern/Southeast Oklahoma.
  • This one is a bit further in the future so it is harder to discern the exact track of the system.
  • What does seem pretty certain is that some people are definitely going to get snow, perhaps several inches.
  • Given the further south location, the travel impacts will likely be heightened since Texas/Oklahoma tend to be a lot slower in getting roads clear.

The thermodynamic profile of this system doesn’t feature warm air aloft at all. This is a very cold system.

Larger system overall: The second system does look larger and more powerful in many respects. The question that is the crucial one is how far south the storm will track.

  • The air is very cold aloft, so no freezing rain is expected.
  • This will mean snow will accumulate even with air temperatures slightly above freezing.
  • How far south the snow will go is going to be an open question perhaps straight into the event.

There will be snow next week: The bottom line is, snow will be falling in parts of the Southern Plains next week as almost every model agrees on that at this point.