4Warn Weather – Good Wednesday morning!
Today will be one of the warmer days this week with temps easily landing 10-15 degrees above average. We are starting the day on the mild side with temps in the upper 20s to low 30s with mostly cloudy skies.
The roads should be in pretty good shape, but there are a few hidden slick spots with moisture left over from yesterday’s brief wintry mix. Conditions are mostly dry with very little wind.
We shouldn’t get our hopes up for that seemingly rare January sunshine today, as only a few cloud breaks expected.
Today’s sunrise is at 8:01 a.m.
You should expect mostly cloudy skies most of today with little-to-no moisture leaking from these clouds. High temperatures will be in the low and middle 40s. Very light winds will move SE at 5-10 mph.
We’ll see a hint of sunshine here and there as we go through this Wednesday afternoon.
We continue to track a very dangerous weather pattern on the west coast with flooding rains, piles of mountain snow, and severe winds for one more day. This has been ongoing, and we will see some of that moisture moving into SE Lower Michigan and Southern Ontario on Thursday.
Tonight’s sunset is at 5:22 p.m.
Storm arrives Thursday
We are working on the timing and precipitation type for a storm moving into our area Thursday.
This storm will bring a lot of snow into parts of the Plains on Wednesday, but there will be a shot of warmer air moving up from the Gulf that will change this into a rainmaker in our region starting Thursday afternoon.
High temps should have no problem hitting those middle 40s again. Some of our computer model data suggests some wintry mix or rain showers possible in the morning, but most of the moisture should be moving in from the south in the early and middle afternoon.
We should get a healthy amount of rain -- from a quarter to a half an inch -- before it switches to snow later Thursday night. There will be a cutoff line with this moisture, and some of our far western and northern suburbs may get very little of anything.
Rain will switch to snow Thursday night after 7 p.m.
Our snow model data has not aligned. Some models show limited snow totals with most of the storm dropping too much rain at first. A couple of computer models show that rain-to-snow change coming earlier or with a healthier amount of moisture Thursday night, leading to aggressive predictions of 2-4 inches of new snow.
We shouldn’t bank on this, but it’s likely that we see a little more than a coating or dusting of snow -- making for a couple of tricky commutes. Rain will make it sloppy and slow for the late Thursday drive, and Friday morning could be icy and snow-covered as temps start to drop.
Snow tapers off Friday
Snow showers will taper off Friday morning. Wind starting to crank from the northwest could draw in some scattered lake effect snow showers and flurries.
Temps may start in the middle 30s before they land in the lower 30s, feeling like teens and low 20s, as we end the work and school week. Scattered, light snow could throw down another coating here and there. We will keep you posted.
The weekend looks cool but dry and nice with morning 20s and afternoon 30s. We’ll see more sun Saturday than Sunday.
It’s early, but some computer model data hints at some light afternoon rain on MLK Jr. Day on Monday. Stay tuned!
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