The Austin area has been placed in a winter storm watch from 3 p.m. Sunday through 3 p.m. Monday.

And that’s just for starters.

A winter storm will bring possible snowfall totals of between five and 10 inches to the area, starting later in the day Sunday, with the heaviest amounts falling Sunday night into the early morning hours of Monday.

Along with this snow, expect drifting and blowing snow in open areas, particularly in northeast Iowa and southeast Minnesota according to the National Weather Service.

This storm is just the first salvo in a parade of harsh winter conditions for this week as arctic temperatures begin setting into the area Monday night where the low will dip to -14 degrees.

After that it gets even worse as lows will begin falling to a predicted -28 on Tuesday and -25 on Wednesday and that’s before windchills settle, making those temperatures feel twice as cold.

The high for Wednesday is only going to be -16.

Minnesota Public Radio is reporting that Gov. Tim Walz is is looking at a statewide closure of schools.

“We’ll explore it,” the MPR story quoted him as saying.

While schools generally make their own decisions as to closure, state law does give the governor power through the Department of Education’s education commissioner the story explained.