My winter weather prediction for central Indiana for the rest of January and into February of 2026.

It looks like the Polar Vortex will return after January 15th. When it arrives, it will make it as far south as Indianapolis and then it will work its way farther south as each clipper system dives down from Canada. The pattern evolving has three different storm tracks. I drew an ugly picture for you all. The two blue lines represent cold air intrusions from Canada from the PV. The first (top) blue line puts Bloomington in the warm sector but not by much. The second blue line (bottom) puts Bloomington in the cold sector. The red line represents the southern branch of the jet stream. 

One of these could be the dominant feature or, two of them could be the dominant feature. If the second blue line and the red line phase together early enough and strengthen early-on, that could give us a Big Mama snowstorm. But that's a big “if”. Right now, I don't see any chances for big snows until after January 21st. If you are not from central Indiana, we typically get out big snows from about January 18th to February 14th. That is the sweet spot for big snows. Now, that's not to say that it can't happen before that period or after that period but that is the norm for central Indiana. 

Okay, so here is an example of how the Polar Vortex will likely set up:

Another thing that I've noticed is that the first week of February is trending colder; much colder than normal. Check out the period between February 6 through February 9. How about that -22 degrees at 7:00AM on February 6?

There's not much snow in the 10 day forecast but I think we'll see snow during the last week of January. For now though, expect that infamous "Snow Hole" over Indiana. The first below is the GFS model and the second one is the Euro model.

Both the GFS and the Euro have AI Models and here are their predictions respectively. Same sharp cut-offs.

Lastly, the CFS is the longest range model that I know of and it is not to be trusted this far out but here is a map of total snowfall accumulation between now and February 9th. 

That's a whopping 16 inches of snow in the picture above.

So here are my predictions: 

Off and on warm & cold with small snow shower chances and rain now through January 15th.

The Polar Vortex comes to visit after January 15th and sets up near Indianapolis.

The Polar Vortex digs farther south by January 20th. 

Expect a snowstorm somewhere in the Ohio Valley and the northeast during the last week of January.

Expect a very cold opening to February. 

#BOTS!
(Bring On The Snow!)