The 614cast
Thursday’s tl;dr
🌥️ Mostly cloudy and not quite as blustery, high near 30.
Forecast highlights
❄️ A couple of clippers
Two Alberta clippers are poised to track across the region over the coming days. The first one Thursday night into Friday morning drops more snow down toward Cincinnati than here. A second one on Saturday seems to have a better chance of bringing us more snow.
Here’s the European model’s surface map and radar forecast from Thursday evening through Saturday night.
Again, snowfall Thursday night to Friday morning will be higher to our south. It looks like we’ll probably end up somewhere in the realm of roughly an inch. Since it’ll fall leading up to the Friday morning commute, assume it’ll take some extra time to get to work, despite the fairly low amount of snow.
Saturday’s snow axis is still in question, but there’s some decent suggestion that it’ll be farther north than the preceding one. Here’s the National Blend of Models’ odds of getting at least 2” — a pretty decent shot.
🧣 Arctic blast looks short-lived
The Arctic surge is delayed by about a day compared to earlier expectations, with a focus squarely on Sunday. Here’s an early look at forecast temperatures and wind chills.
Yikes.
The cold blast enters Ohio on Saturday, is deepest Sunday, and continues on Monday. But all signs point to a quick moderation in temperatures next week.
Highs may actually rise above normal for the first time in forever.
📊 Thursday’s almanac
Normal low/high: 29 / 43
Record low/high: -9 (1917) / 66 (2007)
Sunrise/set: 7:43 a.m. / 5:06 p.m.
📈 This season has been extreme… relatively speaking
I like to sometimes check in on the Accumulated Winter Season Severity Index, or AWSSI, to see how the season is going.
Compared to previous seasons, we’re actually in the “extreme” category through December 10.
AWSSI uses temperature, snowfall, and snow depth to come up with a score. The points accumulate through the season and are compared to previous years, giving a sense of how relatively harsh or mild (or neither!) it’s been.
You can dive into the scoring process here.
🌭 For the weather weenies
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Snow it all: How to track Columbus plows in real time (Axios)
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Coalition on flood policy pushes for proactive funding for Ohio, other Appalachian states (Ohio Capital Journal)