We have all the ingredients coming together this week to bring the season’s first major winter storm starting off Out West. However once the circulation crosses the Rockies and enters the open Plains, cold air sweeps in from the NW meeting warm, humid air from SE and along with strong upper jet stream, the system is going to deepen. With a Gulf connection, expect heavy thunderstorms in the warm sector but as that moisture wraps into the cold rear, heavy snows will break out with snow rates likely to be high.

Expect blizzard conditions with gusts near hurricane-force from western Kansas to North Dakota.

We could see 2-3ft in the mountains of Montana, Wyoming and Colorado and even 3-6, locally 12 inches on the western high Plains.

This system tracking NE looks to hand off another developing low somewhere between Virginia and New Jersey and this looks to bring the first interior Northeast snowstorm.

Sure will be warm out ahead but a significant slap in the face comes once the cold front passes.

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