4Warn Weather – Here’s your 4Warn Weather forecast for the week leading up to Christmas in Metro Detroit.
Quiet first half of the week
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- Snow out west in the plains this afternoon is pushing closer, but should miss us just to our north. We’ll watch it closely.
Pre-Christmas rain, then snow
- Long range models are coming into better agreement on what happens late this week, but now we expect a rain/snow transition. Even the smallest of details will have the largest of impacts.
- The latest information suggests we’ll see rain start later Thursday and continue through the overnight. Friday morning is when we’ll see the transition take place from rain to snow.
- Snow will continue to fall during the day Friday through Saturday. The heaviest snow will come later Friday and overnight into Saturday. It will still come down good Saturday, just at a bit of a lower rate.
- By the time we wake up Sunday morning, we’ll definitely have snow that we will have to shovel -- but this is where things get tricky. Some long-range computer models have us around 5 inches of snow accumulation, while others have double that. With this still being a ways out, we’re not going to jump on specific totals yet. But, yes, you will have snow to move.
- Few lake effect snow showers will also be possible on Christmas Day.
Late week wind
- Along with the snow, winds will be picking up big time as well.
- Gusts on Friday could be well over 50 mph.
- On Saturday, some gusts may get over 40 mph.
- Winds on Sunday and Monday are still expected to gust over 20 mph.
Bitter cold this weekend
- With the strong gusty winds Friday, wind chills will be in the negative teens.
- Saturday and Sunday will also have sub-zero wind chills in the morning, and lower single digits in the afternoons.
Other headlines
Winter officially starts Wednesday
- The winter solstice is at 4:47 p.m. Wednesday.
- What a way to bring winter in, with a big ol’ snow storm Friday and Saturday!