Cold Winds and Snow For the Rockies, Plains This Week

By Frank Strait, Senior Meteorologist

September 30, 2012; 12:00PM,EDT

 

 

 

 

 

Cold air and wintry winds are headed for parts of the Rockies and Plains starting Wednesday. Snow will also accompany the blast in many locations.
An impressive blast of arctic air will arrive in the Canadian Prairies during the first part of the week and then cross the border into Montana and the Dakotas at midweek, accompanied by strong winds and snow.
Snow is will fall over parts of the Canadian Rockies Sunday night into Monday and in portions of Alberta east of the Rockies Monday night.
By Tuesday night, the cold push and at least spotty snow showers will arrive in Montana and then reach the northern Plains of the United States on Wednesday.
The early season outbreak will easily bring the chilliest weather of the season so far to these areas and will be accompanied by a period of strong wind.

Daytime AccuWeather.com RealFeel® temperatures likely will hold in the 20s and 30s over much of Montana and parts of Wyoming and North Dakota for a day or two.
The chill from this particular outbreak will take some time to get to the Great Lakes region and may have to wait for another push to do so.
This second push of cold air appears to be in the cards for the end of the week and next weekend. Another bout of snow will likely accompany it over the Rockies, this time reaching farther south into Colorado.
This projected weather pattern fits with the connection between one to two weeks after tropical systems curve before hitting the coast of Asia in the Pacific, that colder air pushes into part of the northern United States.
The Pacific Tropical Storm Ewiniar more or less did this east of Japan over this past week, and Jelawat is following suit, scraping Japan along the way.
It appears that some of this chilly air will finally reach the Midwest and Northeast next weekend.