FINAL CALL: Wednesday Night Storm

Have you seen forecasts over the weekend with a weather person claiming to know what the snow totals and rain/snow line will be? I hope you didn't believe them. This is a textbook southern low. No one knows with certainty what we were going to get that far ahead of time.

As of now I can say we're going to see some snow in Central Ohio, and we will probably see a little sleet and ice too. That's all I feel confident putting out there. The details are going to be hard to pin down.

The NWS has us under a Winter Weather Advisory until tomorrow evening:

I think that's just a place holder for now. I expect Winter Storm Warnings to come up for at least a two county ribbon across the I-71 corridor sometime this evening.

Most models are very slowly coming further north with the snow/ice line. That's what I've expected for a while just because this is what southern lows always seem to do to us. You can have model consensus for days ahead of time, but when it comes time for the low to develop, these models all correct to a more northern track.

I'll be interested to see how close we come to this snowfall layout from the NAM:

When I say layout, I mean the thin area that is depicted for the event. That's a 50-75 zone from the northern edge to southern edge in Central Ohio. I don't subscribe to this scenario being exactly what happens tonight in terms of totals and locations, but I do like showing this to prove that the margin for error is so small.

Our southern low is just now coming together in Louisiana, while the northern branch of this storm is coming in from the upper Midwest. Those two will marry very close to Ohio overnight. That's the reason you see a "v" shape to the above snowfall area also; because this is just getting going over us, not before getting to the region. That fact, along with our general uncertainty that comes with the track of any southern low, means predictions could change every hour.

For now, I want to try to give you an idea of what we could expect from our most complex system of the season so far, and what impacts we'll experience tomorrow morning.

Temps will slowly drop over night, but not by much. We should get to the mid 20s before temps slowly rebound as warm air rushes in aloft. Snow should start in Central Ohio around midnight, with light to moderate snow rates. By 3-4am snow will become pretty heavy at times. As of now I don't think we'll get above freezing anywhere in Central Ohio. That means if it doesn't snow, it'll be a sleet or freezing rain mix at times. At no point should be switch over to all rain above freezing.

If at any point an area unexpectedly changes over to sleet or freezing rain, our snow totals will drop. Maybe steeply. For every hour of sleet or freezing rain, we could be losing 1-2" of snow from possible totals.

That being said, here's what I think we'll see for totals in Central Ohio:

The pink area is what I expect for ice accumulation, south of the pink line specifically. In that area, I think we could actually even see less snow than I have posted, it all depends how intense the snow is in the beginning.

I usually don't post two inch ranges like I have here, but this storm is still hard to pin down.

By the way, Winter Storm Warnings have now been posted south of I-71. This doesn't mean the heavier snow will fall south, but because the criteria is bigger for areas north. All along I-71 we should see the same amount of snow, but different criteria means different advisories.

Expect absolutely awful driving conditions in the morning, especially with snow still falling near the beginning of rush hour. Areas south of US22 could be really ugly. Ice would make traveling unbearable.

If we see any changes in track I'll post again later.