Run-of-the-mill winter storm
"Disco Stu doesn't advertise."
-- Pointless catchphrase from The Simpsons
Our next weathermaker, Winter Storm "Disco Stu", doesn't appear to be as strong or fearsome as the last big storm. The official forecast calls for about 4 inches at Cape Girardeau. Usually this would be a fairly big deal, but after the 7.7 inch windfall last week, this storm seems ho-hum by comparison.
On Friday, it appeared that the axis of heaviest snow would fall somewhere between Cape Girardeau and St. Louis. The computer models did a major flip-flop over the weekend, pushing the storm well to our south. Now the big snow appears to be south of Jonesboro, Arkansas.
Indeed, the first wave of snow from "Disco Stu" has already danced through portions of Arkansas, delivering several inches between Little Rock and Memphis, with more on the way. Even far northern Mississippi and Alabama are likely to get more snow than we do. Another storm projected for later in the week will dive even more to the south, potentially delivering a big snow for northern Louisiana -- but not here.
The national snowfall projection from the GFS computer model barely puts us in the "yellow zone" (2-3 inches), in between a band of heavy snow in Arkansas and a massive area of 6+ inch snows from northern Indiana north to the Great Lakes.
Zooming in, the GFS model paints Cape Girardeau at a bullseye -- not for a big snow, but for less snow accumulation than just about everybody else in the region!
The National Weather Service is somewhat more bullish. They just upgraded much of Southeast Missouri, including Cape Girardeau County, to a Winter Storm Warning. The probability map from the Hydrometeorological Prediction Center shows that we have a 40% chance of receiving at least 4 inches:
It's safe to say that "Disco Stu" will bring a decent snow, but not a massive, crippling snowstorm like Washington, D.C., just had. There's no reason to panic: this system barely warrants a BREAD Index of 1.
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