Tools you can use - First major winter storm of the year

Forecasts are coming together and pointing to what is likely to be a major winter storm for the first weekend of 2025. Snow, ice, severe thunderstorms and isolated flooding are all expected. We have some tips on how you can monitor this evolving forecast on the Weather & Radar app.

The WeatherRadar is your main go-to when getting an idea of an incoming storm event. Rainfall (blue), frozen precipitation (orange), snow (pink), lightning (yellow dots), clouds (white) and the temperatures are all shown up to four days into the future. For this storm, you'll see all of these parameters in action as the storm begins to come together starting Saturday on the WeatherRadar.

A few things are coming together to help this system form. First, in the upper levels, a low-pressure trough carrying a cold blast and gusty winds will carry the wintry energy down from the northern tier to the central U.S. where it will meet up with a surface low-pressure. As it moves out of the Front Range to the central Plains, it pulls plentiful moisture out of the Gulf.

The combination of cold air, gusty winds and Gulf moisture will create this extensive storm system. The northern flank will drop heavy snow with heavy rain and even severe storms coming up on the southern flank. Ice chances are sandwiched in the middle, posing the risk of power outages.

While we're not touching on totals just yet for the ice or snow, there is a way to be best prepared so that when this information is available, you're the first to know. The app alerts are a great asset to have in your winter toolkit to know what is coming and when. You can easily switch these on in the app in the main menu.

If you have weekend plans, be sure to check back here frequently for more information.