Snowfall this Weekend

While much of the area is experiencing the coldest temperatures of the season so far, snow is making its way through the Western Great Lakes. This snow will struggle to reach the ground this far east today, and minimal accumulations are expected in Ohio. However, another round of snow will make its way through the Ohio Valley and Eastern Lakes before becoming a light to moderate snowfall along the East Coast.

An open wave will work its way through the Mississippi Valley, with a very weak surface reflection across the Ohio Valley. Precipitation is now modeled to move across all of Ohio, parts of SEMI and eventually the Toronto area. While this storm will produce light precipitation compared to the Boxing Day Storm, due to cold temperatures, high snow ratios will dominate the event, which will make the most out of the precipitation that will fall. There are discrepancies between the NWS offices and HPC, as well as local media outlets. From what I have seen today, the models are generally painting 2-4" across Ohio. The latest ECMWF shows slightly higher amounts then what the NAM/GFS show in NWOH. This still falls in the range of 2-4", with more towards the I-70 corridor. This makes sense due to the best lift located towards the center of the state, as shown below.

UPDATE: 10:20pm:
Not much has changed in the past few hours. A heavy snow band has set up near Indianapolis extending northeast towards Lima. Generally it appears that there will be two different areas of higher snow totals... one extending from Indy to NWOH, while the other, heavier snow area will be near the Ohio River valley running ENE through Pennsylvania. For now I'm staying with lower totals, but based on reports back towards Indiana where that band set up, I could easily see some locations approaching 5-7" or so due to localized banding which set up earlier.