(Courtesy of National Weather Service)

The Indiana National Weather Service office in Syracuse has issued a special weather statement for Kosciusko County and the surrounding counties including Marshall, Elkhart, LaGrange, Noble, Whitley and Wabash.

Meteorologists have been watching a system that began developing off the coast of Texas early this week and is now moving across southern Colorado and the plains toward Illinois and Indiana. That system is packing strong and potentially damaging winds with moderate to heavy snow possible Thursday evening into Friday morning.

The system is expected to reach into extreme northwest Indiana late today bringing widespread rain and maybe even an isolated thunderstorm into the overnight hours. A band of moderate to heavy snow is then expected to wrap in behind the system Thursday evening pushing in falling temperatures and strong west to northwest winds. The result will be lake enhancement of the snow which forecasters say could lead to accumulations of 2 inches to 5 inches by early Friday afternoon.

Greater snow accumulations are expected across southwest lower Michigan, northwest Indiana and even portions of far north central Indiana.

Travel conditions are expected to diminish among the 25 mph to 35 mph sustained winds and gusts to 50 mph, especially during times of moderate to heavy snowfall. Due to winds, sporadic power outages may also occur.

Anyone planning to travel Thursday night and Friday is advised to closely monitor forecasts on this developing winter storm.

Already under Winter Storm Watches are Elkhart, St. Joseph and Laporte counties in Indiana.