Rain & Snow Chances

Some sun will be seen in spots this morning, otherwise, skies will trend towards cloudy through the course of the day in SW Michigan. Highs today around the 40-degree mark. Rain and snow will develop this evening changing over to all snow overnight. Accumulations tonight… trace amounts to around 2 inches. Lows tonight near 32.

As I said last week I was not overly excited with snowfall amounts for the end of the week into the weekend.  The true Arctic air is still propagating into  Eurasia rather than North America.  I am not sure we will see any severe cold outbreaks anytime soon or later for that matter.

NWS Forecast Discussion

-- Band of snow tonight into Friday for portions of the area --

Today for the most part will be dry across Southwest Lower
Michigan. Precipitation associated with the upper low looks to
hold off until towards 7pm this evening across far Western Lower
Michigan. The precipitation initially this evening will either be
rain or a rain/snow mix. The profile cools through the overnight
with snow becoming the dominant precipitation type. There are
hints in the models that we could be looking at a band of snow
across the northern half of the forecast area or from roughly the
I-96 corridor to the north overnight into Friday. There is not a
consensus in timing or placement, but the most favored location
for this band is across Central Lower Michigan tonight into Friday
morning. It appears that a wet 1-3 inches of snow is possible.
Given temperatures near freezing and the fact that we are in mid
January no headline planned at this time for the snow.

-- Cloudy with occasional chances for light snow Sat-Mon --

The upper low drifts off to the east on Saturday. Cannot rule out
some areas of light snow on Saturday, but not expecting any
significant accumulation for sure. The weekend overall looks to be
damp (occasional light/wet snow) and cloudy.

There is an upper wave forecast to swing through the Southern
Great Lakes on Sunday which may bring us a bit more in the way of
precipitation, however the wave looks to largely miss us to the
south. Southern Lower Michigan would be most in line to see
synoptic precip via this wave.

We finally get cold enough for lake effect snow on Sunday. The
models have trended a bit warmer overall up until this point. -9 C
is the value needed for lake effect given a +4 C lake and that
shows up Sunday. Moisture depth looks shallow so not expecting
anything significant. Moisture depth does increase Sunday night
and that may be a time frame to keep an eye on.

-- Another chance of some light snow Tuesday --

A shortwave aloft takes aim on the area around the Tuesday time
frame in generally zonal flow. Moisture depth briefly increases
once again and we are cold enough for lake effect snow. So, this
will be another time frame to keep an eye on. The wave is moving
through the flow fairly quick though, so it would only be a 12-18
hour period of precipitation.

Overall, we are not impressed with any of the snow chances
through the 7 day forecast. There will be some occasional snow,
both synoptic and lake effect, but nothing that is going to rise
to a significant level.