DETROIT – The latest major winter storm just grazed us Thursday, as expected, leaving a fluffy inch or two across the area.
Light snow and snow showers are gradually winding down, and mostly cloudy skies (meaning some of us may get occasional peeks of sun) will prevail during the daylight hours until scattered snow showers develop late afternoon into the evening.
Highs will reach the mid 20s (-3 degrees Celsius), with light northwest wind at 5 to 10 mph becoming a west wind during the afternoon -- it’s this shift to the west that will help energize the Lake Michigan lake effect snow machine and bring some snow showers across the state later on.
Today’s sunset is at 6:11 p.m.
Snow showers diminish Friday night, with mostly cloudy skies hanging on. Lows in the low teens (-11 degrees Celsius).
Weekend update
Skies should become partly cloudy on Saturday, with highs in the mid 20s (-3 degrees Celsius)…a great day to get out and play in the snow!
Partly cloudy Saturday night, with lows in the single digits (-15 to -13 degrees Celsius).
We’ll hopefully start our Sunday with some sunshine, but skies become cloudy as the morning progresses. Highs, however, should reach the low 30s (0 degrees Celsius) -- another great day to play in the snow!
The next storm
The next storm is still on track to reach us Sunday night.
However, the upper level disturbance that will generate this surface system won’t cross the west coast until Saturday morning, so it won’t be until then that our computer models benefit from the direct observations of our land-based weather balloon network (called radiosondes). Until then, I can’t get real confident about a few specifics.
Snow will develop -- that’s a certainty -- but the big question is the thermal profile of the lower atmosphere. It still appears that some of us will see a transition from snow to freezing rain and rain, but who gets that changeover is still up in the air (no pun intended -- really -- those words just came out -- you truly don’t want to know what goes on inside my head).
But I’m seeing enough suggestions from the models to think that a changeover will occur for at least the southern two-thirds of our area, so snow amounts look less impressive now -- perhaps an inch or so total Sunday night into Monday morning. Of course, if something changes radically and we stay all snow, then the snow amounts will go up.
And for those of you worried about another return to the deep freeze, stop worrying. I do not see anything resembling the temperature regime we just came out of for the next two weeks, which then puts us in March, where those Arctic blasts become even less likely.