Looking like one for the ages along 94. Been a while since GRR spent so much ink mentioning anything besides "131 and west".
After a brief intermission, we will see a very rapid onset of a new
round of snow across the northwest forecast area shortly after sunrise
Saturday. This event will feature substantial synoptic lift thanks
to a deepening and sharpening trough upstream and an associated
cold front over Wisconsin that is already producing snow. Meanwhile,
farther east over Lake Michigan, the boundary layer will quickly
deepen with convective instability exceeding a depth of 10000 ft.
This deep lake instability plume is expected to rapidly penetrate
far inland, bringing with it an extremely fast onset of heavy snow
and poor visibility that should extend northwest of a Muskegon to
Clare line by the 9 AM time frame.
This area of lake enhanced snow will expand very quickly so that by
1 PM its leading edge will extend approximately from the southwest
tip of Lower Michigan to Lansing. Snowfall will be quite intense
at this point across far southwest Lower MI. In fact, latest WPC
guidance gives Grand Rapids 3-4 inches of snow between 1 PM and 7
PM Saturday. This is the kind of daytime snowfall rate one would
expect in mid January instead of mid November.
The contributing lake-induced fgen region mentioned previously now looks
to be a bit more progressive than earlier thought thanks to the cold
font moving in with more authority. Even so, it appears we should
see a dominant and more purely lake effect band developing in its wake
and persisting through much of Saturday night with heavy snowfall.
Unfortunately, this band looks to be closely aligned with I-94, as
is often the case in these scenarios.
In contrast, areas farther north closer to US-10 we should see a
gradual cessation of lake effect snow Saturday night around the
same time things are staying interesting around I-94 as described
above.
In addition to accumulating snow through Saturday night, we are
concerned about strong winds increasing the hazards of exposure to
cold, poor visibility, and possibly drifting. Saturday`s daytime
wind chills may actually be lowest over the southeast forecast
area as this is where winds will be the strongest. Drifting of
snow remains a concern, especially since we`ve already seen a hint
of this here at the office.
And they've added winds to 40 mph in the headline wording too. I know you're not the biggest wind geek like me, but you have to admit it's pretty wild for the first real event of the season. And ofc, it finally happens 1 yr after I've moved on.