DETROIT – Please join me on Twitter (@AndrewLocal4) for regular weather updates..
Tuesday afternoon sunshine will help Detroiters tolerate cold conditions. Highs will be 5 to 10 degrees below average; in the middle 20s. Also on the plus side, dry conditions will be helpful for drivers picking children up from school, traveling home from work or running errands.
Tuesday evening will have fair skies with temperatures falling through the teens at dinnertime.
Tuesday night will be frigid, again, with lows below 10 degrees in many communities and wind chills near or below zero by Wednesday morning. Families need to continue using caution with space heaters and extinguish fireplaces and all candles before leaving the house or going to bed.
As high pressure slights to the southeast of Michigan Wednesday, clockwise winds around it will blow from the southwest and bring slightly higher temps. Stable air will keep a fair amount of sunshine around as the mercury rises to about 30 degrees.
The next snow-maker arrives Thursday. At this time it appears to be a double-barreled low pressure system with a northern portion and a southern portion that will eventually combine. The southern portion of low pressure coming out of the Rockies will be the dominant feature, and it will have a warm-air component to it when it arrives.
At dawn on Thursday, with morning lows below freezing, it will be cold enough to start snowing from west (Lenawee, Livingston, and Washtenaw Counties) to east (Detroit and Macomb, Monroe, Oakland, Wayne Counties and the all of SE Michigan). Snow will be light and continue through the noon hour with accumulations around an inch by that time and many neighborhoods.
Thursday's temperatures will eventually hover around the freezing mark, which is a crucial divider between frozen and wet precipitation and will have an impact on snow totals.
Thursday afternoon may see the passage of the system's warm front, and raindrops may start mixing with snowflakes south of 8 Mile Road. If this happens, it will keep accumulations near 1 inch for Lenawee, Monroe, Washtenaw and Wayne Counties by the end of the day. Lapeer, Livingston, Macomb, Oakland, Sanilac and St. Clair Counties may remain colder with 1 to 2 inches of fresh snow.
The snow forecast remains subject to change because it is more than 24 hours away. Therefore, stay tuned to Local 4 and ClickOnDetroit.com for any weather forecast updates. Keeping track with the Local4Casters app is an excellent idea, too.
Friday will be partly sunny and colder with highs in the 20s. Super Bowl XLIX is on Local 4, and the Motor City area's weekend will be partly to mostly cloudy with scattered snow showers Saturday night and Sunday morning. Highs will be near 20, and lows will be in the low teens.
LOCAL 4 WEATHER APPS
Remember to download the FREE Local4Casters Weather app. Just go to your app store and search for "WDIV." Our local radar pops up as soon as you open the app. It is the perfect resource for traveling because you have the power to monitor 4 Live Radar anywhere in the nation.
Also, download our FREE Storm Pins app so you can take and share holiday and weather photos and videos. We know you have keen eye for gorgeous sunrises and sunsets and dazzling Christmas light displays. With Storm Pins, just pin them to a map so the Local4Casters can share them and give you a TV shout-out. Feel free to share pictures and clips with other Storm Pins users, too.
The FREE Local4Casters Weather and Storm Pins apps are the perfect way to make weather more social.
Weather links: