DETROIT – The snow arrived right on schedule Monday late afternoon and evening, and came down heavily at times through the night.
The snow arrived right on schedule Monday late afternoon and evening, and came down heavily at times through the night. Snow reports are starting to come in, and it appears that we’ve had a general 6-to-9-inch snowfall across the area.
Of course, we’ll get some reports outside of this range, and especially because there has been a lot of blowing and drifting: There could be drifts of one or two feet in one part of a parking lot, while another windswept part of the same lot could only have a couple of inches of snow on the pavement. It’s tough to measure a fluffy snow in a windy environment.
As the snow winds down, we’ll start to see some lake effect bands setting up over the Thumb today -- some of those could extend southward as far south as between M-59 and I-69, so those who get under those bands have another inch or so of snow to deal with today.
It’ll be a cold day, with highs only in the upper teens (-7 degrees Celsius), but a north to northwest wind at 10 to 20 mph keeping wind chills around zero (-18 degrees Celsius).
Today’s sunrise is at 7:28 a.m., and today’s sunset is at 6:08 p.m.
Tuesday night forecast
Becoming mostly clear Tuesday night, which combined with the fresh snowpack and wind diminishing to under 10 mph, means that temperatures will crater. Lows will range from -1 degree (-18 degrees Celsius) in the heart of our Urban Heat Island, to -7 degrees (-22 degrees Celsius) or even a little colder in our coldest rural areas. Wind chills overnight will average -10 to -15 degrees (-23 to -26 degrees Celsius).
Wednesday forecast
Increasing clouds on Wednesday, with highs in the upper teens (-7 degrees Celsius).
Cloudy Wednesday night, with lows in the low teens (-11 degrees Celsius).
End of the week storm
Today’s computer models are trending toward less impact from the Thursday/Friday storm. If we get any accumulation, best chances will be on our east side.
Keep in mind that the upper level disturbance that will generate this storm is just moving off the Pacific and onto the continent today, so our land-based weather balloon network will be able to give us better data to ingest into the models later today, which will give us added confidence about its eventual track -- which will be critical to our weather.
Any nudge farther northwestward will bring significant snow closer to us. Any nudge farther south or east will keep all snow away from us.
However ...
A system coming our way Sunday night initially is on a track to give us a more direct hit, so a few inches of snow appears possible then -- stay tuned, as there can be changes this far out, of course.
How about some good news
Ready for some “normal” temperatures? How about above normal temps?
It’ll be gradual, but it’s coming. Highs in the mid to upper 20s (-4 to -2 degrees Celsius) Thursday through Saturday, then near freezing (0 degrees Celsius) on Sunday, and then in the mid to upper 30s (3 degrees Celsius) most of next week!