01/23/2026
9pm Jan. 22nd
Dangerous, very cold winter storm begins Friday afternoon. Travel is discouraged starting very late Friday afternoon thru Sunday.
WAVE 1: Initial start time: 3pm. Could be as early as 2pm and as late as 7pm. Early precip is lighter, scattered and could start briefly as freezing rain before quickly transitioning to sleet, snow or a mix of both.
Friday night: Heavy snow! Sleet remains possible at times as far north as Hwy 412. Near I-40 it could be all sleet much of the night (to be determined). IF temps can cool just a degree or two, HEAVY snow there too. I'm not going to pretend to have the answer here. It's a razor thin margin between snow and sleet. Some models show all snow, some of the short range models show a more pronounced warm nose between 5,000 and 10,000 feet aloft. At the surface we're well below freezing in the teens. This is where the discrepancy still comes into play because there isn't agreement on the warm air aloft.
Saturday: Snow, sleet in some areas could still occur. There are indications we get a break after noon. However, there could be enough lift present between wave 1 and wave 2 for light snow, or even freezing drizzle. It'll be awfully cold and dry, so not sure on the drizzle.
WAVE 2: Saturday night thru Sunday. Heavy snow moving back across the entire area. This should be more snow than sleet down south finally. It may start as sleet but will transition to snow. Snow tapers off either late morning or early afternoon. There are timing differences we'll have to sort out.
I upped my low end totals to a minimum of 8" for northern areas and left the 5-8 inches alone down south for now! The CAM models are spitting out eye popping snow totals, I'm not even going to post them. They are much higher than I'm showing on my map. I could be low, I know that sounds crazy but I'm sticking with this for now. Some areas could certainly see 15" or so. If I can become more confident in placement and what falls as sleet vs. snow I might update this map again. This can't be perfect, that's not how it works with snow. I'm a perfectionist so it makes this difficult for me.
Bottom line: MAJOR WINTER STORM... Wind chills Saturday morning could be negative 5 to negative 10. Air temps will hold in the single digits to low teens all day. Travel will be slick and hazardous, no doubt about it. Sunday won't be any better, maybe mid teens or so. Low temps by Monday morning will be well below zero for northern locations.
I'm going to say it again, schools are going to be closed early next week. Some rural schools may not go all week. I'm not a superintendent, nobody seeks my opinion, but you can't get rid of snow like this with temps this cold. Interstates will improve on Monday since they can plow them, but it won't be smooth sailing either. Locations that see heavy sleet and then snow on top....forget about it. Those will be much slower to improve and tougher to plow.
God Bless you if you read all of this! 😁🥶❄️