4Warn Weather – Several inches of snowfall is expected in Metro Detroit on Friday, about one week after hundreds of thousands of people lost power due to an ice storm.
On Wednesday and Thursday of last week, a mixture of ice, sleet, and snow caused more than 600,000 DTE Energy customers to lose power. Many of them went several days without having it restored.
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“The damage and the impact to the system overall is certainly extreme and catastrophic in nature,” said Ryan Stowe, the vice president at DTE Electric. “I know there’s going to be a lot of discussion about what happened, and we’re more than willing and happy to go through that process in sharing the findings and what happened.
While crews continued working to fix damaged power lines, another round of snow arrived Monday and knocked out power to more than 10,000 additional residents.
Now, just as the dust settles from last week’s ice storm, a new wave of winter weather is approaching. The 4Warn Weather team is predicting parts of Metro Detroit could receive more than a half-foot of snow Friday night.
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Meteorologist Ashlee Baracy says light rain will begin in the late morning or early afternoon. That precipitation is likely to change over to snow sometime around the evening commute.
After 5 p.m. Friday (March 3), some parts of Southeast Michigan could receive snow at a rate of 1-2 inches per hour.
“Confidence remains high that in a band of snow, 8+ inches of accumulation are likely within Southeast Michigan,” Ashlee wrote. “But confidence is lower in the exact placement of that band, even as we get within hours of precipitation starting. As of this morning, the heavier band is lining up to from Jackson through Howell to Pontiac and up toward Lapeer.”
Most of the area is expected to get at least 3 inches of snow. The hardest-hit areas could get around 8 inches.
Click here to read Ashlee’s full forecast.
Click here to view the live weather radar.