Could be a long weather day for some if they want to make it so. One could go to the symposium in Lincoln for most of the day and drop south or southwest not terribly far for some possible cold core storms(who knows how great though) then drift back north for thunder snow ops.
I personally am hoping for a good thunder snow chase more than anything else and figure it's quite possible Saturday night not far from home. Still a fair difference in NAM GFS tracks with NAM further north.
GFS has been rather consistent in blowing up some heavy precip on the nw side of the sfc low after dark Saturday night. Whoever is just into the snow line at the onset of that should get hammered with monster flakes and thunder snow. Guessing somewhere around Tekamah or West Point. But the snow line moves quickly southeast. My hope is a south trend to get that into Omaha by late evening. Then try and get some CG in snow. Tried that last fall with an early system. Thing was the far majority of the CG activity was out by Grand Island. Hope is for a similar setup but that activity being closer to Omaha this time. Of course it was highly annoying trying to shoot longer exposures in snow/sleet. Gotta be a way.
Both models show strong winds moving in by Sunday morning. NAM even showing some of the higher shading.
http://www.rap.ucar.edu/weather/model/eta72hr_sfc_mslp.gif
40mph gusts are sort of boring. Hopefully we can muster something much greater than that.
FWIW that open flat area along I29 in western IA north of Omaha south of Sioux City can be pretty fun in high wind snow events. Just find an east/west highway or road even with the fields. Got a dusting once a few months ago now but gusts to 60mph and at times you just could not see 1 vehicle length away. All with probably under 1 inch of snow. I keep wanting to see what 60mph would be like in some of those areas with more snow.
http://radar.weather.gov/ridge/radar.php?rid=oax&product=N0R&overlay=11101111&loop=no
That area shows up real well on the topo image on there if you uncheck highways and radar. Open and flat as a pancake there.
HPC Discussion of the models for this one:
EXTENDED FORECAST DISCUSSION
NWS HYDROMETEOROLOGICAL PREDICTION CENTER CAMP SPRINGS MD
211 PM EDT THU APR 02 2009
VALID 12Z SUN APR 05 2009 - 12Z THU APR 09 2009
RECENT ECMWF/UKMET/CANADIAN/NOGAPS GUIDANCE ALONG WITH ECMWF AND
CANADIAN ENSEMBLES CONTINUE TO INDICATE THAT A RATHER DEEP ERN
PACIFIC CLOSED LOW SHOULD PROGRESS INTO THE WRN CONUS AT A SLOWER
RATE THAN FORECAST BY RECENT GFS AND GEFS ENSEMBLE MEAN GUIDANCE.
PREFERENCE REMAINS WITH THE SLOWER MAJORITY IN LIGHT OF THE
AMPLIFIED NATURE OF THE UPCOMING PATTERN AND THE RELATIVELY GOOD
CONTINUITY DISPLAYED BY NON-GFS BASED SOLUTIONS ONCE THEY PICKED
UP ON THE IDEA OF SLOWER PROGRESSION TWO DAYS AGO.
http://www.hpc.ncep.noaa.gov/wwd/day3_psnow_gt_08.gif
Edit: Damn, 18z NAM hammering ne NE...
http://wxcaster4.com/nam/CONUS_MESO-ETA212_SFC_ACCUMSNOWFALL-KUCHERA_84HR.gif