DETROIT – As promised, Arctic air tightened its grip across the Great Lakes today, with many locations in Southeast Michigan not even making it to 20 degrees (-7 degrees Celsius).
The only snow in the area today came in the form of lake effect bands impacting the southern Lake Huron shoreline in Ontario. Radar suggests that you folks in Kettle Point are getting the worst of it right now as I type (4:30 p.m.). It appears that this snow band will drift eastward somewhat overnight and then end during the day Saturday as a southerly wind develops.
As for the rest of us, a weak disturbance moving eastward out of Wisconsin could give us some light late-evening snow showers, especially for areas west of I-275. This snow will have little to no impact.
We’ll have some cloud cover overnight, but there will be breaks as well. How many breaks we get later at night (i.e., mostly cloudy versus partly cloudy) will dictate how low temperatures fall. Right now, I expect lows in the single digits for most (-15 degrees Celsius), with near or slightly below zero readings (-18 degrees Celsius) possible in our coldest rural areas.
Fortunately, the wind will diminish and become calm air overnight.
This evening’s sunset is at 5:52 p.m., and Saturday morning’s sunrise is at 7:42 a.m. By the way, next Thursday, the sun will set at 6:00 p.m. for the first time since this past November!
Weekend forecast
We have a dry day in store for Saturday, with some breaks of sun likely during the middle of the day. This will be our last day of the Arctic cold, as highs hold in the low 20s (-6 degrees Celsius). Calm air to start the day will give way to a developing south wind at 4 to 8 mph.
We remain dry for our Saturday evening plans, and then clouds start breaking up once again later at night. Lows near 10 degrees (-12 degrees Celsius).
Mostly sunny on Sunday – soak up some “free Vitamin D,” as Brandon likes to say - although clouds may increase during the mid-to-late afternoon period. Highs recover back into the upper 20s (-2 degrees Celsius).
Next week
Monday and Tuesday look dry, then we have what appears to be non-impact snow shower chances on Wednesday and Thursday. The next opportunity for the type of snow that we may have to shovel comes Friday, but this doesn’t appear to be one of those powerful, newsworthy types of storms, just something to watch (and remember that, this far out, details and timing can change).
Temperatures remain close to average through the week, but it looks as if we trend colder again next weekend into early the following week.
Have a great weekend!
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