Weather

Our forecast begins with benign weather for Thursday and Friday, but the changes are massive headed into the weekend, with winter weather likely to hit our area. Here’s the latest outlook for the next four days.

• Thursday-Slowly decreasing clouds. Highs near 50. Clouds slowly increase Thursday night, low 27.
• Friday-Mostly cloudy, high 42. More clouds Friday night, with snow showers developing late. Low 20.
• Saturday-Snow, sleet, and freezing rain are all in play. Details below…high 32 degrees.
• Sunday-All types of precipitation are possible during the day. High 37.

There are things on that outlook you’ve never seen before, I bet. Well, we’ll get to that. As always, we’re going most recent first, and after a cold morning low to start Thursday, it should become partly cloudy by tomorrow afternoon, with temperatures a bit above average. Don’t get used to that. Originally there was a chance of snow or freezing rain there, but it doesn’t look like a big deal for Thursday night and Friday at this point.

Friday stays cloudy and cool, as highs only reach 42 behind that initial cold front. Those clouds start bringing snow showers on Friday night, most likely after midnight. Look for lows overnight near 20.

The main event for this system is likely Saturday, and in the past four days it’s been all over the board, from 6-8 inches of snow to over two feet. Now, we’re seeing a total of half a foot of snow or a little more along with some freezing rain and sleet involved. Some computers show a full inch of freezing rain with this system, which would be a big problem for many of us, causing power outages and the like. That would almost be worse than a lot of snow. With that being a new development in the last couple days.

Which begs the question of what’s going to happen? Computer models have trended warmer recently, which I thought might happen. Our actual temperatures have been a few degrees warmer than anticipated, and I think the computers are catching on to that. But, that graduates us from snow to frozen precipitation with snow. If we can get a few more degrees out of the atmosphere Saturday, we could get up to a cold rain…which would be nice unless you want to be out of school on Monday.

The solution right now shows snow Saturday morning, changing to sleet and freezing rain as temperatures above us get warmer. Sleet is where snow melts to rain and refreezes into little ice pellets, and freezing rain is rain that freezes to the ground that’s below 32 degrees. In Celsius, that magic number is 0. And the big deal in the forecast is where we’re above or below zero from the surface to a few thousand feet above us.

From Saturday, it looks like Sunday could be the same thing, and if we get up to a high of 37, we may see rain come into the picture. Any time of ice, freezing rain or rain will lessen how much snow we get…so it’s going to be a tough forecast for sure.

Bottom line is, be prepared…for anything! And also, be ready for very cold weather next week. Even if we get out of this unscathed from a major snow or ice standpoint, folks to our northwest will get a good amount of snow. Since most of our weather comes from up north this time of year, that air won’t modify like it normally does with cold snow on the ground. So lows in the single digits are likely next week.

I’ve tried to exercise some caution on this forecast, knowing changes were coming. I think we’re a couple changes away from having an idea what’s happening. A weak cold front (that originally looked to bring snow, but likely won’t), moves through tomorrow, and I think that’ll help dramatically in forecasting for this event this weekend.

Another fresh look at things is likely tomorrow…so stay tuned!