January 12th Storm: One Day Out

Here we are on the Eve of our first storm of the season. Nothing's changed, the models have been incredibly consistent over the past few days. We're looking at a midwest low (instead of the Gulf low I thought we would originally see) that'll eventually transition to a coastal low as it passes just south of us.

It's that transferring of energy to the new parent low that'll be the difference in a couple inches of snow here in Central Ohio.

If you've followed along with the latest NWS snow forecasts or even other local meteorologists, you might have heard of some higher end snow totals. I've seen some places calling for as much as 7" of snow. If we see 7" here in Central Ohio, it'll be the most over achieving system I've ever seen in my life.

Instead, here's what I think we'll see here:

Now I know this is probably less than most outlets have promised, but there's a reason I'm going conservative: it's not that powerful of a storm. It's just a fact. This is a decent mid-latitude system that'll give us periods of moderate snowfall, but lets not kid ourselves, this isn't a blockbuster. It won't over achieve and it won't under achieve.

I talked earlier about that transfer to the coast, and that's the part of the storm where you'll see snow suddenly cut off. It'll be like turning the burner off on a pot of boiling water. The snow will just dissipate. I anticipate that happening sometime Saturday night, right before midnight. The sooner this happens, the lower the snowfall amounts.

Expect this to be a wet snow, roads will be slushy and nasty, and we'll probably see a couple Snow Emergencies in our hilly counties to the southeast. The NWS issued the Winter Weather Advisory I predicted, and it's our first of the season. The first of many? Well we can only hope.

I'll be tweeting throughout the storm tomorrow, so be sure to follow https://twitter.com/wxcentralohio for updates all day tomorrow!