Snow in the Forecast for Thursday Night into Friday

Well it looks like the Metro Detroit area will finally receive some accumulating snow Thursday night into Friday!  The current forecast is for the precipitation to start as rain during the day on Thursday, and then once temperatures are able to drop below freezing, the precipitation will have a chance to turn into snow.  As of this evening, the general consensus appears to be 1-3 inches, with the higher amounts most likely occurring the further west you go into central Michigan.  There will be a lot going on during the next 36 to 48 hours so the forecast could change slightly either way.  Let’s take a look at what we can expect.

Currently there is a low pressure system with its center in Kentucky moving to the northeast towards New England.  As the system gets closer to Michigan tomorrow morning, the low pressure will go through a process known as occlusion.  This will cause another surface low to drift to the north into Lower Michigan.  This will cause warmer air to move into the Metro Detroit area during the day on Thursday, with temperatures reaching the lower 40s.  This will cause the first wave of precipitation to be all rain.  The weather map below shows the forecast for Thursday morning.

 The image above is courtesy of HPC.

Right behind this occluded low will be another low pressure system coming from the northwest.  This system will help push the occluded low off to the east while bringing in colder air behind its cold front.  Once the cold front passes, cold air will rush in behind it allowing the temperatures to drop below freezing.  The timing of when this will occur is expected to be Thursday evening around 10pm to midnight.

 This image represents the forecasted surface temperatures for Thursday evening at 10pm.  It shows that below freezing temperatures will be in the northern portion of southeast Michigan indicating any precipitation falling would start turning over to snow.  You should be able to click the image to make it bigger.  This image is courtesy of PSU ewall.

So it doesn’t look like we can expect a lot of snow with this system but considering that we haven’t received any snow yet, I sure will take it.  The good news is that the second system will have good dynamics which could help increase our snow totals.  This won’t really be known for sure until a few hours before the snow starts.  This type of forecasting is called nowcasting.  I will be doing this as the snow approaches, so if anything changes, I will let you know.

Chris