Bill Karins, Meteorologist

Today's big storm breakdown is focused on a three day weather event across the middle of the country. A mini tornado outbreak is likely along with a lot of heavy rain and flooding concerns. For a winter storm, this system will only produce a narrow region of heavy snow from Kansas City to Milwaukee on Sunday. After the storm heads into Canada, a cold shot of arctic air will rush through the Plains and Great Lakes on President's Day.

Saturday

Our storm rapidly intensifies over North Texas Saturday. We will wake up to a line of thunderstorms over West-Central Texas and this line will intensify as it moves east during the day. As expected, a moderate risk of severe weather has been issued by the storm prediction center for the potential of tornadoes and widespread wind damage over much of East Texas. The area of concern is the triangle between Dallas, San Antonio and Houston. There is still a question as to how many supercell thunderstorms will be able to form out ahead of main squall line along the cold front. The storms along the cold front will produce hail and wind damage but not many tornadoes. It's any supercells that form out ahead of the cold front Saturday afternoon and evening that will have the greatest potential of producing a strong tornado. The tornado threat will slowly diminish overnight as the storms head for Louisiana. Another weather problem on Saturday will be icy weather in North Texas and Western Oklahoma. A light coating of freezing rain and snow will make roads very slick. We also have to watch for isolated flash flooding but I'm not expecting it to be too bad over Northeast Texas and Eastern Oklahoma.

Sunday

Our big storm will be just that on Sunday. It will gain considerable strength as it heads into the Great Lakes region and turn into a big wind machine. Severe weather is expected to head through the Southeast with a strong line of storms along the cold front. The concern will be wind damage along the squall line. Isolated tornadoes will also be possible but an outbreak is not expected. Most of the weather problems on Sunday will be found in and around Chicago. Heavy rain will fall south and east of Chicago, while heavy snow will fall Northwest of the city. Of course this also leaves Chicago in a wintry mess of freezing rain, sleet and snow. The heavy snow will fall in a narrow band from Northern Missouri up through Eastern Iowa, Western Illinois and through Southern Wisconsin. This area has been hit repeatedly by heavy snow this winter and once again they will see 6-12". Earlier this week Madison, WI broke their all-time single season snowfall record with 80.2" inches. They will add another 6" at least with this storm. Milwaukee should also get another 6". Chicago will be most likely see a messy 3" of snow and sleet but it won't be pretty. After just reading the Chicago hydrology discussion, I need to bring up the possibility of significant river flooding. Many rivers are already at flood stage and are expected to rise further after this storm passes.

Monday

At this point our Big Storm will be a full blown mature cyclone heading into Canada. Heavy rain out ahead of the cold front will sweep east off the Southeast coast in the morning. The weather headline on President's Day will be found in the Great Lakes and Northern Plains where arctic air will blast in on gusty northwest winds. Snow squalls will fly off the lakes with wind chills easily into the negative numbers. It will not be a fun morning of shoveling in Wisconsin and Illinois.

Check back for updates over the next two days. I will fine tune as the storm approaches. -BK