CHICAGO – A fast-moving clipper system will bring light snow or a wintry mix to parts of the Great Lakes and interior Northeast as it slides across those regions on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day.
The system initially produced areas of freezing drizzle across the Upper Midwest late Saturday and into early Sunday, leading to slick roads that triggered several crashes as drivers were caught off-guard by the patches of ice.
The National Weather Service issued Winter Weather Advisories for parts of Wisconsin, northern Illinois, southeastern Minnesota, eastern Iowa and northwestern Indiana through Sunday morning. This includes Chicago and Peoria in Illinois and Milwaukee and Madison in Wisconsin.
While snow or a wintry mix is also expected in other areas, the areas covered by Winter Weather Advisories have the highest threat of travel impacts from slippery roads.
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On Sunday (New Year’s Eve), light snow or a wintry mix is expected as the clipper system slides southeastward from the Great Lakes region through the central Appalachians.
“It really starts to pick up later into the afternoon hours,” FOX Weather Meteorologist Kiyana Lewis said. “Notice how we’ll see snow showers from Chicago, back towards Detroit, certainly picking up over Cleveland, where we have that rain-to-snow mix. And then south of that, we actually still see rain for the course of today.”
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Overnight Sunday and into Monday (New Year’s Day), the clipper system will bring snow to interior sections of the Northeast and mid-Atlantic.
“It switches over to snow through the overnight hours, and we’ll actually see this resurgence of snow along the central Appalachians as we head into early tomorrow (Monday),” Lewis added. “Ohio Valley, back towards say the mid-Atlantic, is next in line to see some of that active weather.”
Less than an inch of snow with a light glaze of ice is expected for most areas between New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day.
Some of the higher elevations of the central Appalachians could pick up locally higher snowfall amounts ranging from 2 to 4 inches.
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While the snow won’t amount to much, gusty winds could blow some of that snow around, leading to areas of blowing and drifting snow that reduces visibility.
“Associated with this clipper, we also see those higher wind gusts coming through,” Lewis said. “So we are going to be watching wind gusts anywhere between 10 to 20 (mph), 20 to even 30 mph as this continues to move off from west to east.”