January 12th Storm: Two Days Out

Here we are just a couple days away from our first storm of the season. It's been very surpising how solid the models have been, we've been locked in on a moderate snowfall for a couple of days now.

I think snowfall totals could be tricky for a couple of reasons. First, we're not quite on the far northern edge of the precip like it looked we would be. As of now, we are going to be getting in to the heavier band, closer to the rain/snow line. That will give us heavier snowfall rates. As of now it looks like most of Central Ohio should be in the snow by noon on Saturday:

Snow will move in quick and bring us moderate snowfall rates. This is coming after 3+ days of sub 30 temperatures, so everything that falls will stick instantly.

Even though I say we'll be closer to the snow/rain line, I believe all of Central Ohio will stay snow throughout.

By early Sunday, snow will begin to taper off. This storm system is moving in to a dry environment that will weaken it as it moves in. Parts of Missouri will see upwards of a foot of snow, but we won't see anywhere close to that, even though both locations will go through the same sector of the storm:

The past couple Euro model runshave picked up on this trend of the northern edge drying out early. Even though, with the position of the low, we would still be in a favorable area for continued snow, the low is transitioning to the coast at this time and taking the forcing with it. This quick dry-out will rob us of 1-2" of snow overall.

I'm not ready to put a snow map out just yet, I'll do that sometime tomorrow. But expect us all to wake up to Winter Weather Advisories tomorrow morning.