Significant Icing Event Knocking on the Door

Hello, and good morning everyone! I hope you had a great start to the week yesterday being able to enjoy the sunshine. Hopefully you took advantage of it because we have a significant icing event knocking on the door that is expected to really shake things up around here.

snow running GIF
We might all be like this cat come Thursday. (giphy.com)

The Calm Before the Storm

Today, we aren’t at risk to see any icing. It will be the calm before the storm, if you will. With that being said, we are expecting conditions to be mostly cloudy most of the day today out ahead of this wintry system. Rain chances are slim, but possible with nothing more than a light passing shower expected.

A look at the reflectivity for this morning. We will little to no rain under mostly cloudy skies today. (Pivotal Weather)

The high today will reach a seasonable 45 degrees with the overnight low reaching 33 degrees accompanied by increased rain chances.

The rain will stick around into Wednesday with on and off rain showers all day long. The temperature tomorrow starts the trend of falling temperatures as we top out around 40 degrees setting the stage for what is to come.

Significant Icing In Store

Beginning Wednesday night, the entire WABBLES region goes effectively into a winter storm watch. Significant icing looks to be in store that is likely to cause the most impact around here that we have seen in awhile. Let’s break it down below.

The precipitation will fall as rain before completely transitioning to freezing rain in the early morning hours, roughly around 2 am. This will continue into the day on Thursday with off and on freezing rain falling mixed with rain and sleet before moving out of here by roughly 9pm Thursday.

A look at how the rain quickly turns to freezing rain Wednesday night (red) and lasts through Thursday. (NAM, Pivotal Weather)

As of now, 0.1-0.5 inches of ice accumulation is expected with most receiving around 0.3 or more and local amounts could be higher 0.5 inches. Folks, ice is no joke. Amounts of 0.25 inches is when we will begin to see power outages, falling trees/branches, and road travel will be nearly impossible. So, with higher amounts possible, we will likely see these impacts unfold.

NAM has ice accumulation amounts upwards of 0.6 inches. We will see highly significant dangerous impacts if this lives out to be true. (Pivotal Weather)
GFS trending a bit lower than the NAM but still a cause for significant impacts. (Pivotal Weather)

With potential amounts near 0.5 an inch, impacts could be severe. Please stay weather aware and pay attention for more forecast updates.

That’s all for today! Thanks for reading and be sure to follow our social media outlets, @wxornotBG, on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to stay up to date on this winter storm. Stay safe!