Weather won't impact New Year's Eve celebrations, but 2023 will start under fresh snow

SIDNEY - A significant winter storm is on track to impact much of the Nebraska Panhandle, southeast Wyoming, and northeast Colorado over the next 24 to 48 hours.

The National Weather Service office in Cheyenne issued a winter storm warning from 5 p.m. Sunday to 11 p.m. Monday for the entire Nebraska Panhandle and Goshen County in southeast Wyoming. The warning expands into north-central Nebraska. 

The storm is not expected to impact New Year's Eve celebrations on Saturday night. 

WeatherEye Weather Center Meteorologist Mandy Thalhuber says, despite being so close to the start of this winter weather, there's still a lot of uncertainty with this particular storm.

"It's going to be the tracking of this Colorado low pressure system that's really going to effect snow totals greatly," Thalhuber said. "With this particular system, we're also going to have something called 'banding.' That's when, if you were to look at a radar, you would see those more intense bands of snow. Where we see those bands setting up is where we're going to be seeing the much heavier snow totals."

A broad range of 6 to 12 inches of snow is predicted for the warned area, according to Thalhuber. She says areas that start seeing this banding could end up with 12 to 18 inches. 

Thalhuber says heavy, wet snow could fall at about an inch per hour. Highest accumulations are expected along the Pine Ridge.

"The slightly good news with this particular storm system is we're not anticipating it to be upgraded to blizzard criteria," Thalhuber said. "Now we are going to be seeing gusts of about 20 to 30 mph. We're going to have blowing snow. We're going to have drifting snow. Thankfully, we're not seeing anything to support a particular scenario that this storm system would get upgraded to a blizzard."

According to Thalhuber, travel conditions will become dicey real fast. She says the region will have reduced visibility, snow-packed roads, and some icy conditions. Temperatures will remain cold enough that the storm should remain an all-snow weather system.