Wintry Impacts Tonight!

Four different types of precipitation may fall across Region 8 tonight and tomorrow morning. Freezing rain, sleet, snow, and plain rain. Here are my thoughts at 7:30 am:

• Determining the impacts on schools will be tough. I'd hate to be a superintendent in the morning because this is one of those lose-lose situations. Either decision will be criticized by parents. 
• Precipitation will fall through the overnight.
• There should NOT be many power issues. Only isolated issues.
• Roads could be slick in the morning, especially bridges and overpasses.
• Precipitation TYPE will be the hardest part of the forecast.

Let's review precipitation types. Everyone knows what "plain" rain is... and everyone knows snow. People often get confused with sleet and freezing rain. Sleet falls as little pieces of ice. Freezing rain falls as liquid and freezes on contact. I always say, sleet bounces... freezing rain glazes. Region 8 will likely see both tonight.

Here's the latest data of all 4 modes of precipitation for tonight:

As you can see, this will be a tough forecast. Pinpointing the EXACT lines of sleet, snow, and freezing rain will be tough. Because we have been a little colder than what the data has shown over the last couple of days, I really think there will be more SLEET than this algorithm above is showing. I think a lot of that freezing rain may be sleet. Sleet can mess up some roads faster than snow.

Stay tuned for changes. I'll post another blog update tonight and do a LIVE Facebook video.

Have a good day!

Ryan