Updated Wed 07:40PM — Today’s models continue with the idea that some light rain may graze us early Saturday morning.  No snow.

The NAM has backed off of last night’s snow forecast and shows only light rain showers possible before daybreak Saturday into Saturday morning.

What’s fascinating about this weather event is how far apart different models are with the development and location of the low pressure system at this point in time.  Here’s the Canadian Global model:

…from Wednesday morning—

So, things seemed very clear last night with the forecast for Saturday.  Most of the models had the storm well east and south of us, barely affecting us. The Canadian and ECMWF are still south and east, with no precip here.

That’s also still true of the GFS and GEFS, but not so clear cut with the  higher resolution NAM that has just come into forecast range (84 hours is the max forecast horizon for the NAM).

The NAM runs from last night and early morning have the storm side-swiping our area with a coating to an inch of snow early Saturday morning:

The German ICON ensemble model has a somewhat similar snow depth of less than an inch further west:

The GFS, showing no snow,  has done the best this year.   I’ll keep an eye on it.

Update Sat 03:35 PM — The changeover to sleet has occurred  in the time frame predicted by the NAM model.

The 1PM run of the NAM, which just became available, predicts some freezing rain here between 5-6 PM.

Update Sat 12:14 PM — Latest Canadian Global, just available, is very similar to the  lower accumulations of the NAM.

Update Sat 11:55 AM — Earlier, I said I was going with the NAM model’s lower accumulations, but the latest GFS just available still insists on more.  It has been very consistent and it’s something that needs to be considered as a possibility.

Update Sat 09:04 AM — NAM data just became available.  I think we’re going to go with these much lower snow/sleet totals—

Last night’s models have continued the dichotomy between the global models and the short range high resolution models.

The short range (NAM, NAM NEST) have further reduced accumulations.  Here’s the latest NAM snow/sleet depth for 7 PM tonight—

These models continue with a warming above 6000 feet, changing the precip to sleet by 3-4 PM.

The global models (GFS, CMC, ECMWF) continue with lower level cold and dynamic cooling from heavier precip.  They maintain snow levels almost 1 inch over the above totals.

Just as last night, I’m leaning towards the NAM and the lower snow/sleet totals shown above. I’m assuming the GFS is over-doing the cold air and precip.

Tonight’s models have converged on a forecast similar to that predicted by the new NBM—

Snow moves in between 10 AM and 12 noon, although intermittent flurries possible earlier.

A changeover to a mix of snow and sleet occurs about 3-4 pm and a the mix  changes to mostly rain about 6 pm.

Most likely accumulations of snow and sleet from the latest NAM before the changeover to all rain—

Just as I was going to post this, the latest GFS model became available.  The GFS has a burst of snow late in the afternoon.  It has been consistently in the high range.  Here’s the latest GFS snow totals by 7 pm  —

I don’t know what to make of this. It’s something to consider as a possibility.