UPDATE: Decent Storm Probable Tuesday to Wednesday

Last night's post talked about the potential for a storm Tuesday in to Wednesday. With each model run leading up to this evening, the threat has become more and more real. As I said, it's a two part system, so lets take it one piece at a time:

Tuesday Morning
I didn't think Tuesday morning would be a serious threat to Central Ohio, and I still think that'll be the case. Western Ohio could be a different story, as I think they cool down enough overnight tonight to support a long duration freezing rain event, even a little past sunrise. However, I don't think we drop below freezing until right around sunrise, and even then it'll only be areas north of I-71.

It'll be another I-71 divide for tomorrow morning, but I don't think those of us south of the freezing line will complain about missing out on ice.

After sunrise, any frozen surfaces should melt pretty quickly. As I said yesterday, that March sun angle is just too high to allow a thin layer of ice to stick around for more than an hour.

Tuesday in to Wednesday
Don't be surprised if by the tail end of our first piece of energy on Tuesday that we see a changeover to mixed precip or even snow. That'll be short lived as the disturbance pulls away and leaves us with a lull for a few hours. But by rush hour tomorrow night we should see snow moving in again. It should start light and even possibly mixed before sunset. It's after sunset Tuesday night that we'll really get things kicking. Probably by midnight we should be in moderate to sometimes heavy snow. This is a perfect timing sort of thing, as we wouldn't be seeing this kind of snow event if it were the middle of the day.

A reinforcing shot of cold air will move in Tuesday evening and help enhance the upper level low. Even on simulated radar early Wednesday morning to can almost pick out the swirl of the low:

Now, how many of you have looked at computer models and saw some high end snow totals? I really hope no one took those to heart. If this were January, yeah, I might buy it. But some of this snow will melt on contact, not even sticking around on a snow board for accurate measurement. We may see a decent amount of snow fall from the sky, but don't expect it all to accumulate. And especially don't expect to see it around on the roads much past mid-morning on Wednesday.

While this is an impactful storm because of the time of year, it won't be a blockbuster that we talk about for years to come. Stay home tomorrow night and ride it out, and by later Wednesday everyone should be able to travel.

Forecasted Snow Totals

I won't rule out a couple pockets getting more than 4" out of this. We're going to have a deformation band setup somewhere, and with the general motion of this storm it could rotate over the same area for a couple hours.

I also don't think it's going to be easy to measure this storm, either. I'll be out there every couple hours to get a good idea of what we're getting and what we aren't getting, but melting will make this difficult.

We're all under a Winter Weather Advisory right now, but I wouldn't be surprised to see some warnings in counties between Columbus and Cincinnati if this thing sets up in the right place.

Since this will hopefully be our last storm of the season, I'll LiveBlog this tomorrow. Get ready for some snow!