Rain turns to snow Monday night

Happy Monday! We are tracking another round of rain but this time we will turn over to snow overnight. A Winter Weather Advisory is out for several counties across the northern half of the ABC 36 viewing area tonight. Rain will turn to a brief period of heavy-wet snow overnight, leading to the potential for 2-4 inches of snow within the heaviest part of the band. If you’re outside of this band, you won’t see much more than an inch of snow.

This is an extremely challenging forecast due to the uncertainties surrounding where will this band of snow will develop. Outside of the band many areas won’t see much snow at all. Temperatures will also be hovering above freezing as the changeover begins. This means we will be relying on a weather process called “dynamic cooling” to drop the temperatures closer to the freezing mark. Without getting too technical that is a process where when the precipitation rates increase, temperatures drop leading to the rapid transition from rain to snow. That’s important to note because that process could be limited for some areas where the precipitation isn’t falling at a very high rate, leading to less of a chance of seeing accumulating snow. Biggest thing to take from this forecast is that we will see changeover from rain to snow for most areas, with the best chance of seeing accumulation within the heaviest part of the snow band. That location is still a bit up in the air so stay with the ABC 36 Storm Team for forecast changes.

There will also be heavy rain moving in before the snow. A widespread .75″ to 1″ worth of rain is likely, with locally heavier amounts possible within any storms that will be embedded within the round of widespread rain. Rain chances are low to the day on Monday, with rain chances increasing by the afternoon and evening commute.

Snow exits the region quickly Tuesday morning with a only a few isolated flakes possible by sunrise. Temperatures will start off below freezing, so be alert for slick and icy spots. As skies slowly clear out Tuesday afternoon, temperatures will bump into the low 40s. This should lead to improvements on the roadways for areas that experienced the heaviest (2-4″) of the snow.

Temperatures will briefly climb near 50 for Valentine’s Day. This will be short lived because another system sweeps through to close out the workweek before dropping temperatures for the weekend.

Stay with the ABC 36 Storm Team for more updates.