BLOG: WINTER STORM TONIGHT THROUGH TUESDAY NIGHT

Good morning! The weekend ended on a slippery note with snow showers and plunging temperatures. Now the stage is set for the highest impact snow event of the season so far.A "big" storm? No. But, again high IMPACT because of the timing and nature of the system. Let's walk through it.

THE SETUP 

We have PLENTY of arctic air across the Midwest and Ohio Valley. Temperatures are bone-chilling to start the day.The system that will bring us snow is actually HARD to find on the map this morning. That's because it is way up in Alberta, Canada.As is typical of Alberta Clippers, this system will move very quickly south and east over the next 24 hours. It will be moisture-starved at first but will pick up some moisture once it gets over the Midwest.

TIMING:

Here's an animation showing the system moving from Canada through the Great Lakes and Ohio Valley through early Wednesday. Note the lake-effect setting up behind it. A clock is in the upper right.We expect snow to begin around 1:00am Tuesday morning. Road conditions will deteriorate rapidly.By 7:00am it will be a mess out there and road crews will be working hard.The steadiest of the snow will wind down by midday. There can be scattered snow showers after that but the snow will not be as consistent and I would expect conditions to improve for a while. By late afternoon and evening, lake-effect will start getting organized. The wind direction off the lake will be favorable for bands to get pretty far south into our viewing area.So we look for additional accumulations from lake-effect Tuesday evening through the overnight. Most of this will be north of I-80, where some places can see another few inches. Even as far south as roughly Rt 224 there can be small additional accumulations and poor visibility for a while Tuesday night.

ACCUMULATIONS: 

During the "first part" (the non-lake-effect) tonight into tomorrow, we think a general 3" is pretty likely. Perhaps closer to 2" from around Rt 30 on south. Since blinding snow squalls can occur for a time around mid-morning, and these are notoriously hard to predict more than a couple of hours in advance, it's possible some places get another inch or so while others do not.Our computer models are in fair agreement.Again, a couple or few additional inches can occur Tuesday night with lake-effect, mainly north of I-80.

IMPACTS: 

This will be a high-impact snow event despite amounts being fairly modest. Expect school adjustments Tuesday and for many, Wednesday. Travel will be slow, especially Tuesday morning. We are not expecting many problems with power outages as they snow will not be super heavy/goopy. This will make it reasonably easy to shovel.Wind chills Wednesday morning will be -5 to -10.Much more throughout the day on social media, on 21 News at midday, 6pm and 11pm, wfmj.com/weather and your WFMJ mobile app.