Another Winter Weather Event for Thursday.

As you can see by looking at the map on the right, temperatures are running anywhere from 10-20 degrees below just 24 hours ago. A brisk northerly wind makes it feel even cooler than that, and the lingering cloud cover does not help matters either. Those clouds are trying to thin out and we should see enough stars tonight to allow temperatures to drop into the lower 20s by early morning as the winds will also be subsiding. That will be followed by increasing cloud cover once again Wednesday and a brisk easterly wind which will keep temperatures from moderating too much.

The increasing winds and increasing cloud cover for Wed will be in response to the next storm system that will be moving across the state on Thursday. At the surface, the winds will be shifting back to the NE Wed night which will bring temperatures back down to near 30 by early Thursday morning and staying below freezing all day. Aloft, colder air will also be quickly spreading back over the state and this combination should result in a fairly quick changeover from rain to a wintry mix to all snow by early Thursday morning. At this point, any ice pellets or freezing rain that may occur should not be a problem as the changeover to snow should take place fairly quickly. Having said that, how quickly that changeover takes place will have a lot to do with how much snow actually accumulates. Total liquid accumulation is expected to be on the order of about .4" and using a standard 10:1 snow/rain ratio would suggest 4" of snow. But, it will not be all snow as there will be that rain/wintry mix beforehand which is why we have been referring to anywhere from 1-3" of total snowfall.

Keep in mind during any wintry event, there will often be some local snow bursts just like there are with rain showers in which some localized heavier totals can and likely will occur. Also, with the below freezing temperatures throughout the day on Thursday, there will likely be some travel issues particularly on the elevated surfaces.

After that, Fri and Sat should be just cold with some moderation taking place by Saturday afternoon. Sunday also looks like it could become interesting with the potential for another winter event by that evening or overnight. First things first though so lets get through the Thursday event before getting too concerned about the later part of the weekend.

As always, stay tuned and check back for updates.

Dick Faurot