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First flakes of the season this weekend

Posted at 10:00 AM, Oct 26, 2017
and last updated 2017-10-26 10:55:55-04

WEST MICHIGAN-  There are two sides to this every year: those who are excited for snow, and those who loathe it.  In the end, we must deal with it because we live in Michigan and that is part of the package deal.

This morning, Ford International recorded the lowest overnight temperature in 201 days as we fell to 28 degrees!  A widespread frost and freeze occurred and now we’ll focus on another cold stretch for the weekend.

A strong upper level low pressure system will move in Friday and bring cooler temperatures behind it during the weekend.  You’ll notice the large area of snow behind it almost immediately.  They’ll expect several inches in Minnesota and Iowa.  We won’t come anywhere close to anything like that.

I’ll pause this look at Future Track on Saturday morning.  You’ll see the seasonally familiar colors of rain, snow, and mix.  Notice the temperatures are between 4-6 degrees away from the freezing mark at their closest.  This isn’t an incredibly cold setup and one that will mostly impact the early morning and late night hours before/after the sun rises and sets.  The warm lake air will keep the immediate lakeshore in the rain only.  Inland, as it gets colder, it’s possible that we’re going to see a few heavy, wet snowflakes.  Ground surfaces are largely very warm for obvious reasons.  It may get cold enough to accumulate in the grass before it eventually melts later in the afternoon.  That’s about the extent of it.  It’s more like our first snow sighting of the season versus our first snowfall.