First of all, thank you for allowing me a brief hiatus the last few days. Our family has been through it with the sicknesses and now I personally have pneumonia…something I thought only kids could get when they went outside without a coat and their mom cursed it upon them. It’s been pretty brutal, but I’ll be on the mend the next few days. Regardless, it’s be rough, but the power of technology, I can type from a keyboard (and look at weather models).

That being said, we have several storm systems on our way as we kick off an active pattern the first half of February. The first storm system arrives later tomorrow (Wednesday) into tomorrow night. Let’s dive into the no-hype details.

Our storm system moves in from the southwest during the day tomorrow (again, Wednesday in case you’re reading this on Wednesday itself). Temps will be at or just below the freezing mark when precip begins to move in. Typically not a problem and it would be all snow right? Not in this case. Remember, our atmosphere is stacked in layers like a ham sandwich. One of layers above us has an area of warmer air sliding in. This complicates everything because now you have warmer air up above us that’s melting the snow that was falling. And now we have liquid droplets falling back into freezing cold air down here at the ground…that’s where our wintry mix of sorts comes into play.

A wintry mix of perhaps some snowflakes at first, freezing rain and some sleet will arrive later in the afternoon into the evening tomorrow. Conditions will turn a bit slick tomorrow evening and with on and off freezing rain/sleet going Wednesday night we’ll develop a glaze of ice around the Region.

By Thursday morning, our precip will begin to move out and will likely changeover to a few rain showers just before ending. Temps, however, won’t go too far above freezing for that commute in the morning (Thursday), so we’re likely to have residual slick conditions.

We’re not expecting a lot of ice from this–this isn’t a major or long-lasting storm system. But it also doesn’t take much. Models range from .02 to .09 inches of ice. (we think the model below is just a tad overdone)

This would cause bridges, decks, driveways, sidewalks to become slick. We’re not looking at power outages or anything like that. We’ll just need to be careful heading home Wednesday evening and heading out Thursday morning. Any of our third shift workers Wednesday night be prepared for some slick travel.

Summary:

Wednesday Evening Commute: Slick

Wednesday Night: Glaze of Ice, this is when things will be the slickest

Thursday Morning Commute: Glaze of Ice still around, temps slowly climb above freezing.