Tuesday, December 25, 2012

Winter Storm WARNING for Wednesday


WINTER STORM WARNING FOR WEDNESDAY!
Snow will begin Wednesday morning and continue until Thursday morning. New snow by Thursday morning will total 8 to 10 with lots of blowing and drifting expected on Wednesday and Wednesday night. The heaviest snow should fall during Wednesday afternoon and evening.

Monday, December 24, 2012

Snow and more snow!

   A very active weather week is in store for the area. The good news is that Christmas Day will be nice for your travels. The bookends around it, though, not so nice.
   This is Christmas Eve and an area of light snow will be heading into the region during the afternoon. It may even mix with rain for a while and then some freezing rain after dark. But, all in all, it won't amount to too much of a problem for you. (See map below)

Map courtesy of AccuWeather
   Christmas Day should see a mix of clouds and sun during the day.  As we head toward the later part of the day, the clouds will thicken as a major winter storm heads up from the south. Current forecasts indicate that the snow should begin early on Wednesday morning and continue through the day and into the night. (See map below) This has the potential to be really big, but at the moment I'm looking at 5" to 8" generally by Thursday morning. Some forecast models are showing more than that, but I don't want to go there yet. We'll wait and see how this thing develops. 

Map courtesy of AccuWeather
   We should settle things down a bit on Friday, but another system will head our way for the weekend. 

   Whew! Busy times!  Nothing at all like last winter.

   Enjoy...and Merry Christmas from us here in the Weather Center!


Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Lake Effect Snow Event is on the way

   I like it when weather people use the term "event" to refer to something about to happen...like Lake Effect Snow Event. Just makes me want to rush out and buy a ticket.  LOL
   Anyhow, a surge of cold air is on it's way to NE Ohio. This will be the coldest air of the season and when it arrives Thursday night/Friday morning the rain will change to snow accompanied by strong winds and lake effect snow. How much snow are we expecting? Well, with lake effect you never really know whats going to happen. A slight shift in the wind direction and any specific area can get dumped on or miss out completely.
   As for this storm, the center of it will move to our northwest creating blizzard conditions west of Chicago and across parts of Michigan. Locally, the lake effect snow will likely begin overnight Thursday into Friday morning and then continue through Friday and Friday night. I suspect we should see anywhere from 2" to 5" of snow on the ground by midday Saturday...the lighter amounts to the south of Akron with the heavier amounts up north.
   After this system moves away we will get a little break for Christmas, then another storm is forecast for the days immediately following the holiday. This one could be big, so you will want to stay tuned to later forecasts.

Monday, December 17, 2012

Not as cold as it could be

     The long-range computer trends are all over the place. The consensus seems to be that we will trend colder later this week as expected, but there is no big Arctic outbreak in the works.
     Beginning Thursday night and over the weekend we will see some lake effect snow. That may be the only snow we see prior to Christmas. A storm we were looking at for the weekend isn't going to develop.  Hopefully, thought, it will stay cold long enough to keep some of that snow around for Christmas Day especially in the snow belt areas.
     After Christmas? Well, that's a different story.  We could actually see a real-live snow system heading into Ohio a day or two after the holiday.
     More later.

Saturday, December 15, 2012

Winter...it's coming

   Lots of people asking me this past week when it was going to get cold and snow. They answer: next week.
   As we head into the week before Christmas, our weather patter is going to be shifting into a more typical winter mode for the Great Lakes. The week will start off rather mild, but by mid-week we will see the temperature trending downward. Next weekend, the weekend before Christmas, it's going to be cold and we could see our first measurable snowfall of the season (see the map).
   So, let's all join hands and sing, "I'm dreaming of a white Christmas..."