Cold start to weekend with snow on the way for Columbus area

QUICK WEATHER FORECAST:

• Tonight: Mostly cloudy, low 22
• Saturday: Partly sunny, chilly, high 29
• Sunday: Mixed clouds, snow later, high 37
• Monday: Chance of snow showers, high 31
• Tuesday: Mostly cloudy, high 36

FORECAST DISCUSSION:

Good Friday Night,

It has been a rather gray day today with highs fairly close to normal in the middle 30s this afternoon. We will see clouds as the rule overnight tonight with temps falling into the lower 20s with wind chills in the teens.

Saturday expect mostly cloudy skies with some sunshine during the day, but it will be fighting against a cold airmass with highs only in the upper 20s to near 30. We will see temps moderating on Sunday ahead of our next big weather maker that is to our west this evening (Friday evening, currently). This system will basically make a turn to our south and begin to move northeast by the end of the weekend.

This means clouds will increase from the south Sunday morning and lift north, with precipitation moving up into our area by mid to late morning in the south and lifting north through the afternoon with the best chances of more moderate to heavy snowfall by later afternoon and into the evening hours on Sunday. What will have to be watched closely is the initial start of the precip., as it will be mixed to start with temps in the middle 30s.

As the moisture moves up into our are, we will see the changeover to all snowfall. It still appears the lightest totals will be to the west, with the modest totals to the central part of the state (near I-71), with the highest totals in the east, where there are already winter storm watches issued (going into effect Sunday late AM-Monday late AM).

There is a fair amount of confidence that most of us will need to dust off the shovels ahead of this event, with snow blowers on standby in the east. Snow showers will wrap around this low for Monday with additional light accumulations of generally less than a half inch.

Temps will recover a bit on Tuesday and Wednesday back to near normal or just above, before another shot of colder air will usher in Wednesday night into Thursday. This will bring a brief shot of some light mixed precip. overnight into early Thursday, followed by colder air on Thursday in the upper 20s. The good news is we should see some sunshine with cold high pressure building in on Friday.

Temps Friday will start in the lower teens, but rebound into the upper 20s later in the day.

-Dave