DETROIT – The snow began lightly this morning, picked up right on schedule, and it’s really coming down now across parts of the area.
Early snow reports suggest that a widespread three-to-four inches has fallen, with very little accumulation southeast of a line from Trenton to Dundee to Morenci.
The band of heaviest snow this afternoon will remain over the area that has received the most snow already, so I now expect accumulations on the order of five-to-seven inches, with much less across the above-mentioned southeastern part of our area.
The notable exception will be in the Thumb, where north-northeast winds will generate intense lake effect snow bands as this unusually cold early season air-mass flows over Lake Huron water temperatures that still have relatively warm early season temperatures.
These bands will be much more efficient snow-producers than our “usual” mid-winter Lake Huron snow bands, and some areas that remain under the most persistent bands could receive between one and two feet of snow.
Keep in mind that these will be narrow stripes of the heaviest snow, and amount will be much less either side of where those snow bands set up.
As we’ve been telling you since last week, record cold will then take hold for the next two or three days before temps moderate heading into this coming weekend.
Tuesday and beyond
Snow showers will diminish late tonight and overnight, but it’s still going to be a bit slick driving early tomorrow with temps in the teens to low 20s first thing Tuesday around Metro Detroit. It will be a dry day tomorrow, but cool with highs in the upper 20s, mostly cloudy skies turn partly cloudy, and the breezes will keep it feeling even colder. We will see winds WNW 5-15 mph gusting 20-30 mph make it feel like the teens on the bare skin if you’re going to be outside for any stretch of time tomorrow.
Wednesday is still cool, but dry with mostly sunny skies and morning lows in the single digits to low teens… brrrr! Sunshine will give way to only partly sunny skies and highs in the upper 20s to near 30F.
There is a light snowmaker moving in late, late Wednesday into early Thursday which may slow down that Thursday morning drive. But most of Thursday will be dry too with highs climbing slowly into the mid 30s or warmer. We should be a little warmer heading into next weekend with temps trying to reach 40F Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. We may end the weekend with a light wintry mix and we’ll keep you posted.
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