Winter weather on the way

There's a Winter Storm Watch for our Illinois counties Friday night through Saturday. Our Wisconsin counties will likely not be put under this since they'll more likely be within that 3-6" range and not have anybody go above 6". Regardless, everybody is in for some snow Friday night and Saturday. As a matter of fact... this looks to be the most snow in one shot since January 9-10, when we had 6.5". (Since that particular event, we've had a grand total of 8.1" of snow.)

3-6" looks likely for the entire viewing area, but near/south of Highway 20, there is the chance of locally higher amounts. Unlike our last system, the heaviest snow will likely fall very near the track of the low. There will be quite a bit of energy to work with - even with it being just an Alberta Clipper. In fact, if things happen just right, some may experience snowfall rates in excess of 1" per hour. Obviously, it wouldn't take very long for the snow to stack up if that happened.

One of the challenges of snow forecasting is the possibility of narrow bands of heavier snow. We have no way of predicting exactly where they'll end up, but this is one of those systems that somebody could find themselves sitting under one of those and getting some very heavy snow.

Once the snow stops falling out of the clouds, it'll still be flying around. Temperatures will be cold enough to support fairly fluffy snow; with strong winds kicking in on Saturday, that snow will be blowing and drifting.

The good news in all this is that, at this time, it appears the snow won't really begin in earnest until the Friday evening basketball games have wrapped up. Of course, keep tabs on our forecast just in case things need to be adjusted.