6-9 inches of snow on the ground, more on the way

DETROIT – The snow arrived at the scheduled time on Monday afternoon and at night, and fell heavily during the night.

The snow arrived at the scheduled time on Monday afternoon and evening, and fell heavily during the night. Snow reports are starting to arrive, and it looks like we had an overall 6 to 9 inch snowfall across the area.

Of course, we will get some reports out of that range, especially since there have been a lot of blows and skids: there may be skids of one or two feet in one part of a parking lot, while another windy part of the same parking lot could only have a few inches of snow in the pavement. It is difficult to measure fluffy snow in a windy environment.

As the snow clears, we will begin to see some streaks of lake effect forming over the Thumb today – some of them may extend south, both south and between M-59 and I-69, so those that stay under these tracks I have another inch or more of snow to deal with today.

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It will be a cold day, with highs only in the upper teen range (-7 degrees Celsius), but a wind from north to northwest at 10 to 20 mph, keeping wind chill around zero (-18 degrees Celsius).

Today’s sunrise is at 7:28 am and today’s sunset is at 6:08 pm

To be clearer on Tuesday night, which combined with fresh snow and wind decreasing to less than 10 mph, means that temperatures will drop. Casualties will range from -1 degrees (-18 degrees Celsius) in the heart of our Urban Heat Island to -7 degrees (-22 degrees Celsius) or even a little cooler in our colder rural areas. Wind freezes at night will average -10 to -15 degrees (-23 to -26 degrees Celsius).

Rising clouds on Wednesday, with highs in the upper teen range (-7 degrees Celsius).

Cloudy on Wednesday night, with lows between 20 and 30 degrees (-11 degrees Celsius).

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Today’s computer models tend to have less impact from the Thursday / Friday storm. If there is an accumulation, the best chances are on the east side.

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Keep in mind that the top-level disturbance that will generate this storm is just moving out of the Pacific and onto the continent today, so our network of terrestrial weather balloons will be able to give us better data to ingest on the models later today, which will give us more confidence about your track – which will be critical for our climate.

Any further push to the northwest will bring significant snow close to us. Any push to the south or east will keep all snow away from us.

A system coming towards us on Sunday night is initially on a runway to give us a more direct impact, so a few inches of snow seem possible – stay tuned, as there can be such distant changes, of course.

Ready for some “normal” temperatures? What about above normal temps?

It will be gradual, but it is coming. Highs between 20 and 30 degrees (-4 to -2 degrees Celsius) from Thursday to Saturday, then almost freezing (0 degrees Celsius) on Sunday, and then between 30 degrees and 30 degrees (3 degrees Celsius) for most of the next week !