No snow day tomorrow, but what about Thursday?

The precipitation shield from the large storm system is currently on our doorstep, as a look at the current radar confirms:



Precipitation should begin falling within the hour, and it should fall as snow, at least at the start. After a few hours though, the warm air that is moving into the area will cause the precipitation to change over to rain. Before then, though, the snow that falls could be rather heavy, and therefore I am sticking with my forecast for 1-3" of snow for Lake Orion. We should have no trouble getting at least an inch out of this initial band, and I tend to feel that if we get just 3-4 hours of snow before the changeover occurs, we'll get at least 2 inches. However, once the rain starts falling, I expect the snow to melt away just as quickly as it accumulates, with the end result of very little snow on the ground when we wake up tomorrow.

All in all, I continue to like my snow map from last night:
.

Tomorrow evening through Thursday morning is when things get interesting. First of all, the low pressure system is going to rapidly strengthen as it passes to our northwest (in fact it's going to be one of the strongest winter storms to affect the Midwest in the last 5 years). This is going to result in very strong winds. In fact, a high wind watch has been posted. I expect us to get 35 mph sustained winds with 55 mph wind gusts from early afternoon Wednesday to early morning Thursday. Winds will continue to gust above 40 mph through Thursday afternoon.

Compounding the problem of high winds is the expectation of a decent lake effect snow event tomorrow night and during the day on Thursday behind the low pressure system. Winds will be out of the west, and very strong, which means that we are set up pretty good for lake effect snow. The problem with lake effect snow is that just a 5 degree difference in wind direction means a large difference in where the main band of snow sets up. As of right now, I expect the main band to set up in the vicinity of the M-59 corridor.

These two simulated radar images for 11 pm tomorrow night and 2 am Thursday morning pretty much represent where I think the main band of snow will be.





Based on these expectations, here's my snow forecast from 5 p.m. tomorrow night to 1 p.m. Thursday afternoon.



An important thing to note from the above map is that just a few miles could make a large difference in your snow totals; therefore, this forecast is subject to change. However, if we actually get 2-4" of snow falling, that would prove to be problematic. Combined with the 40-50 mph winds, it would cause near whiteout conditions. Combined that with the possibility of power outages, and the possibility of rain freezing over on the dirt roads, and you begin to get several things that *could* cause a snow day on Thursday.

Therefore, I'll raise the snow day grade for Thursday to a "C". I'm still leaning towards us not getting a snow day on Thursday, and I will probably predict that tomorrow night, but there's definitely a chance.