DETROIT – We’ve been telling you all week to get ready for this, and today is the last day to get some errands done if you don’t like being out in bitterly cold weather.
Here’s a rundown of what’s coming our way:
Precipitation
Most of the daylight hours should be dry. Some snow will perhaps approach southern Lenawee and Monroe Counties late in the afternoon but, again, the daytime should be mostly dry.
The bulk of the snow will fall between 7 p.m. and 1 a.m., and it now appears that we’ll see less of a changeover to rain or a mix -- best chance of seeing this is south of Detroit and east of US-23. As such, most of the moisture available for this storm to produce will fall as snow, and I now expect a general two-to-four inches of snow across southeast Michigan, with it falling at a pretty solid clip this evening.
Accordingly, the National Weather Service has issued a winter weather advisory from 4 p.m. Thursday through 4 a.m. Friday.
The snow should end in the middle of the night, and we’ll then be dry through Friday morning. Some lake effect snow bands will extend across the state Friday afternoon, and I think the best chance to see those will be north of 8 Mile.
Saturday looks dry, and then there’s a chance for some light snow Saturday night, ending first thing Sunday morning. I don’t expect much accumulation from that.
Wind
It will become a little breezy by late afternoon, but the real wind doesn’t kick in until the Arctic front approaches later Thursday night. Wind could gust between 30 and 40 mph from the south ahead of the front and then, as the front crosses the area, wind will shift to the southwest with gusts around 40 mph possible. This wind will continue through Friday.
Temperature
Today will feature temperatures rising into the low-to-mid 30s (0 to 1 degree Celsius) this afternoon, and actually rising a bit more into the mid 30s (2 degrees Celsius) this evening. Once that Arctic front comes through, temperatures will begin crashing, and we’ll be in the low to mid 20s (-5 degrees Celsius) by dawn Friday.
Temperatures during the day Friday will continue falling, and we’ll be in the upper teens (-8 degrees Celsius) by late afternoon. The cold temps get reinforced this weekend, with highs in the mid to upper teens (-9 to -8 degrees Celsius), and overnight lows well down into the single digits (-15 to -13 degrees Celsius).
Wind chill
The aforementioned wind and Arctic air will make it feel much colder outside than what the thermometer reads. By Friday afternoon, wind chills will be around zero (-18 degrees Celsius).
Saturday’s wind chill will be zero to 5 above zero (-18 to -15 degrees Celsius).
Sunday wind chill will be between zero and 5 below zero (-18 to -21 degrees Celsius).
Important advice
The snow that falls Thursday night will be a wet snow, and (especially if you get any rain on top of it) that snow will freeze into a solid hunk of crud that will be very difficult to remove. If you have the ability, I suggest getting out there as late in the evening as you can to shovel that snow before the temperatures drop.
An added bonus is that it’ll be much warmer then (albeit windy) than if you wait until Friday or the weekend. Keep an eye on the free Local4Casters weather app’s radar…you’ll easily see where the back edge of the snow is. In fact, if you click on the “FutureCast” button, you’ll get the most updated high resolution computer model’s projection of the ending time of the snow -- our app will really help you plan when to get out there and shovel.