January 31, 2014: Good morning weather enthusiasts! ITS FRIDAYYYYYYYYY! SUPER BOWL WEEKEND is upon us! Lot to talk about - so lets get right to it Lots of clouds in the sky this morning. Clouds are thickening and will eventually produce some light rain later today. The good news is that temperatures will be on the rise! The threat for snow on Sunday afternoon into Sunday night looks less now than it did 24 hours ago. If you remember the question on the Sunday night snow was storm track. It appears that the system will track far enough south to only glance our area (maybe closer to KY/TN border counties) with a few snow showers or flurries. I will keep watching in case something changes. Would not have to shift much northward to bring snow showers to other parts of our area. The big ticket item arrives late Monday night and Tuesday/Tuesday night. Big question remains temperatures. I suspect the predominate precipitation type will either be rain or freezing rain/sleet. In this particular set-up you will want to hope for rain. Temperatures aloft are going to be WARM. That means snowflakes or sleet would likely melt on the way down to the surface. If surface temperatures are below freezing then you end up with an ice storm. Much of the data indicates temperatures ABOVE freezing over at least parts of our region. Obviously the further south you are the better chance you have of going above freezing. KY/TN border counties would have a better chance of changing to rain than say Marion or Mt Vernon, Illinois. Monitor details closely on the upcoming potential winter storm system. There will be a lot of updating and tweaking of numbers. It is now in the 3 to 4 day range. Details... Friday - A small chance for a pellet of sleet this morning. A chance for rain showers during the afternoon. Highs will be in the 40s. Southerly winds at 10-15 mph. Friday night - Chance for showers. Overnight lows in the 40s. Southerly winds at 10-15 mph. Winds increasing to 10-15 mph with gusts above 20 mph after midnight. Saturday - Windy at times. Rain likely - temperatures will fall late in the day. Mild with highs in the 50s. Southerly winds at 10-25 mph. Gusts above 30 mph. Total precipitation totals in the 0.30-0.50 range (from Friday into Saturday). Saturday night - Rain early - rain ending from west to east. Small chance of rain ending as a BRIEF period of wintry mix on Sunday morning. Low temperatures in the 20s. Super Bowl Sunday - Cloudy with any precipitation ending during the early morning hours. Colder. A chance for a flurry or a snow shower late in the day. Highs will remain in the 30s. Northwest/north winds at 5-15 mph. Sunday night - A chance for light snow - especially near the KY/TN border counties. Overnight lows in the 18-24 degree range. Monday - Cloudy. Cool. Highs in the 30s. Northwest winds at 10 mph. The big precipitation maker arrives late Monday night and especially on Tuesday/Tuesday night. This does not look like a snowstorm to me as much as it does a mixture of freezing rain, sleet, and rain. Of course rain would fall where temperatures are above freezing. The placement of the freezing line is highly in question. I have been watching the data for days on end. Much of the data has western Kentucky and far southern Illinois hovering right around 31-32-33-34-35 degrees on Tuesday. Trying to forecast where 31 degrees will be vs 33 degrees is a fools game this far out. Thus, we continue to monitor the winter storm and track trends. As far as amounts - the data has been consistent in painting quite a bit of precipitation totals over our region. I suspect we see somewhere between 0.75-1.50 of precipitation (that is melted precipitation). That would equate to a lot of snow if this was a snowstorm. Sadly it looks more like ice than it does the white gold. Monitor updates. You have the weekend to make any necessary preparations for the potential winter storm on Monday night into Tuesday night/Wednesday morning. Many of you prepared for the potential of an ice storm back in December. That one ended up being more sleet and snow than freezing rain. This one appears to be freezing rain or rain. Lets hope for more RAIN vs the freezing rain. Remember that freezing rain is rain that freezes on power lines and tree branches. Freezing rain is what causes a lot of damage. Stay tuned for updates - a LOT of data will come in today and tonight. Hopefully we will start to see some agreement in the numbers. Another precipitation maker arrives next Friday into Sunday (February 7th into 9th)
Posted on: Fri, 31 Jan 2014 16:20:12 +0000
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