BLOG: The Never Ending Winter

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This morning was another reminder that sometimes a small amount of snow can be WORSE for road conditions than a few inches....especially if it comes at the wrong time of day. While some places got an inch or so, most locations "only" got a coating, but it came at rush hour and roads got slick in a hurry.The radar at 9:15am showed the last of the hefty snow bands in Lawrence County, with flurries elsewhere:915rad It sure was nice to see bare ground before this morning's snow. The snow cover map does not reflect today's snow and shows a nice zone of bare ground across the region:depth For the rest of the work week, we will be "nickled and dimed" by a few weak systems that can, as this morning's did, drop small accumulations of snow. Another one will cruise through Wednesday morning and another Thursday. Snowfall amounts with each will generally be under an inch, but watch for "sneaky" bands like we had this morning that can drop locally a bit more.The BIG story this week? Yup, the COLD. Our 7-day forecast:CaptureWe are forecasting the 2nd coldest stretch of weather for these dates since 1930 in Youngstown. Here's the list of coldest February 25-March 3 periods:coldest Plan on 3 straight mornings with Wind Chills below zero. Here's a computer Wind Chill forecast for daybreak Wednesday through Friday mornings:Wednesday:wcwedsThursday:wcthursFriday:wcfridayThe longer range? It looks ugly through most of the first half of March. The 8-16 day outlook off the Climate Forecast System model shows temperatures much below average for March 4-12:816 We have some forecasting challenges ahead for the weekend and early next week. There is likely to be a storm that impacts the Valley sometime in the Sunday-Monday time frame. How big of a storm, what type of precipitation it will bring, if snow....how much...all these things are unclear right now.If you are seeing web sites/Facebook pages that have scary maps with dramatic headlines and/or are providing SPECIFIC snowfall forecasts a week or more out...STAY AWAY! Stay far, far away. Thanks for reading!Eric