As I noted yesterday, this system is not set up well to tap into the Gulf Of Mexico moisture, which normally makes for a less than ideal setup for a good snowfall. However, in this case, we have two things going in our favor.
1) High snow ratios. Temperatures as this system moves through will be well below average for early January, with highs in the lower 20's and lows in the mid teens. This puts us in a position to have something like 20:1 snow ratios, instead of the normal 10:1 - 12:1. What this essentially means is that we can get almost twice as much snow as would usually fall if temperatures were around normal out of the same amount of moisture.
2) Good dynamics. Although this system will not have too much moisture, it has strong upper level dynamics. This essentially means that this system will be efficient, squeezing as much snowfall as possible out of what moisture we do have.
What this all adds up to is around an 18 hour period of moderate snowfall from early Thursday Afternoon until late Friday Morning. Local meteorologists are downplaying this system, but I think it could be a sneaky snowfall producer. This system jumps out to me as one of those that is downplayed until the day it hits us, and then it produces more snowfall than expected. The bottom line is that we would only need 0.25" per hour of snowfall to get 4" of snow from this event. Therefore, I am currently calling for 2-5" of snow from this system.
One thing to note is that accumulations are fairly dependent on storm track. As you can see in my map below, I am calling for 1-3" of snow for areas to our north, and 4-6" for areas to our south. Obviously, we will get more snow if this storm tracks further north than forecasted and less snow if this storm tracks further south than forecasted. Therefore, amounts are subject to change but for now, I think 2-5" of snow seems like a pretty reasonable estimation. I do expect to fine tune accumulation totals as we get closer to the event, as I do realize there is a big difference between 2" of snow and 5" of snow.
Impacts from this storm...I think the most obvious one is a messy rush hour commute both Thursday Evening and Friday Morning. However, I don't think that there is a good chance of us getting enough snow to close school. For now, I'll put the snow day grade at a D (school is unlikely to be cancelled) because snow day chances would increase if the storm tracks further north than forecasted, as we would then have a shot at 6" of snow (with locally higher amounts possible).
The bottom line is that I am expecting this system to be an efficient snow producer that could sneak up on us and give us several inches of snow.
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