Significant Storm System: Blizzard, severe weather AND heavy rain?

If you haven't heard already, the storm system that has been predicted on the models since last Sunday and Monday has finally consummated, and occluded in the Midwest. It is currently weakening very slowly as we speak. But even so, it packed a pretty significant punch to the Midwest.

Just to recap the last few days of weather from this storm system:

1.) It produced feet of snow and impassable travel conditions Thursday night in parts of the Rocky mountains.

2.) It strengthened further Friday morning into the afternoon, producing high winds, extremely heavy snowfall, and cold air across South Dakota and Nebraska. Snow totals have exceeded 45 inches in some areas, with the vast majority of the region receiving well over a foot of snow. The heavy, wet nature of the snow has caused a lot of tree damage and quite a few power-outages.

3.) On the NW side of the storm, within the blizzard, high winds became so strong that it broke records across South Dakota. For instance, Rapid City, SD observed wind speeds exceeding 70 MPH during the highest part of the storm! This caused widespread whiteout conditions within the heavy snow-bands, as well as causing interstate highways to be nearly impassable.

4.) In the warm-sector, heavy rain, flash-flooding and severe weather has been prevalent from Iowa and Missouri into the upper Ohio Valley. Yesterday afternoon, parts of NW Ohio recorded several inches of rain due to training thunderstorms, and most areas saw at least a period of heavy rain. In Iowa and Missouri, large, violent tornadoes destroyed several towns and caused many injuries.

5.) The storm system is still expected to produce very heavy rain across a large part of the Midwest, even with the storm system weakening. This is because of its interaction with the moisture plume associated with Karen, and the fact that it is slowing down significantly.

Take a look at the latest visible satellite imagery:

Notice the spiral band shape of the entire cyclone. Clearly, this indicates that the entire system has already occluded, and is beginning to weaken. Also notice the prevalence of convection on the eastern flank. What this means is that we should see a strong increase in thunderstorm activity over the next hours, and days perhaps if computer models are right.

The strong, closed-low in the Midwest will continue to propagate slowly eastward, drawing rich, Gulf moisture from the south, and causing repeated rounds of showers and thunderstorms. Today, expect showers and thunderstorms to rapidly build-up due to the marginally unstable and humid air mass in place. These storms will move rather slowly, allowing for the possibility of heavy rains before the main events comes under way.

By later this weekend, expect the showers and thunderstorms to organize into more organized structures, and allowing for the possibility of repeated waves of heavy rain.  It will then become possible that we see several inches of rain through Monday.