BRIEF ICE EVENT WEDNESDAY PM-THURSDAY AM

February 4, 2025 7:14am

■ Winter storm watches in place for what looks like a mainly freezing rain event later Wednesday pm, in to early Thursday a.m. That will see a rapid dam burst of milder air Thursday morning flooding the high ground and by midday, youll be saying “what ice event”

●NWS WATCH

These watch areas and these probably will expand in time with some warnings and advisories

■ Now a look at the Euro on temps. This will run through Monday morning and to rehash

-Colder today, Cold Wednesday, Thursday starts cold early with rapid warming over the high ground. Once we lose the easterly flow component it’s game over on the cold air. We then have a 10-14 hour window of mild air that again like this morning will see cold air work by in by Friday morning setting up a cold Friday and cold Saturday for the next light wintry event, that again will have a bubble of milder air. 6-8hours of mild air before chilling back on Sunday.

■6z Euro 2m Temps

■6z Euro Precip Type

■ How the setup works

• Cold dry high to our northeast. Clockwise circulation. Dry colder SE winds rising up over the Alleghenies, and cooling further as it does, especially over the eastern most ridges. As moisture pushes in, you also take on the process of evaporational cooling. Temps fall, dewpoints rise to meet until the airmass is saturated. As long as we hold the easterly component of the High. The eastern ridges are in the ice business. The moments winds cease, there’s always a lull in the wind, a hour later the SW surge howls in, temps rapidly rise and by late Thursday morning you’ll never know we had an ice event.

● Note this below graphic is not for this particular event but illustrating the setup as long as the easterly component is in play. Once that’s gone, you have to go east and to the low elevations Thursday morning where it lingers longer until the SW surges wipes that cold air out too.

● Temps and wind direction in motion. Watch it play out. Models handle these setups remarkably well.

■ Lastly ice accretion off Euro and NWS forecast. Again not a long lasting occurrence and occurs overnight Wednesday in to first thing Thursday