Ohio Ag Weather and Forecast, December 23, 2022 – Ohio Ag Net

Christmas Eve Eve is looking frigid, blustery, snowy and especially suited for staying inside. A cold front blasted into the state overnight, and we find ourselves today under the control of a polar air mass. Temperatures will be well below normal now through the weekend. We will be stuck in the single digits for daytime highs and below zero for overnight lows. Today and tomorrow we have strong winds that will put wind chills in here at -20 to -30 at times. While frontal boundary triggered snow will be winding down by midday to early afternoon (or sooner) in most areas, the winds will keep blowing snow in our forecast all the way through tomorrow with significant drifting. Additional accumulation today in central and eastern Ohio will be a 2-5 inches. Blowing snow makes for limited visibility. The other piece of this forecast becomes the lake effect piece. Right now we are expecting lake effect snow to only affect the usual suspect areas. However, the winds are so strong that we may see some lake effect get into NW Ohio still coming off of Lake Michigan. And, if we see more of a northern component in the winds later today and tomorrow, that can bring lake effect snow farther south in Ohio. Generally, in the normal lake effect areas, we think we can easily see double what we have picked up so far from the frontal passage, and perhaps more. Elsewhere, how much more snow we can add really hinges on wind direction.

Back to the temperatures…this will be the coldest air of the season to this point. The map below shows temps tomorrow (Christmas Eve) morning over the state. If we can see clouds clear off (that will happen if the winds die down), we likely go even colder. The cold air holds through Monday and Tuesday of next week, although we may not be quite as cold.

A clipper system moves through for monday afternoon and evening. This fast moving little disturbance can trigger a coating to an inch or two before it moves on. Clouds will start to break up in its wake late tuesday afternoon.

Wednesday we see a significant pattern change coming. Temps start to moderate through the day. Then we are warm…above normal for Thursday on through the New Years Weekend. However, that warming also brings 3 separate rounds of moisture. The first round on Thursday is somewhat minor, then stronger fronts for Saturday and Sunday can bring significant rains and even a few thunderstorms in southern Ohio. With the cold air coming here first, we expect a good freeze of at least surface inches of ground…and that means rains to close 2022 and start 2023 may make for some ponding and runoff, to go along with melting snow. Any warm up is expected to be short lived, as colder air is pooling to the north and will try to move back in by midweek during that first full week of January.