If you have any errands to run or grocery shopping left to do, then today is the day to knock it out. While conditions won’t be lovely, it’s far better than what will be waiting for us tomorrow.
Grey clouds will dominate the skies for today with winds gusting over 20 mph. Temperatures will be chilly. Our thermometers will only climb a few degrees above freezing today with feel-like temps trapped in the 20s.
The winter storm is set to arrive later tonight just a couple hours before midnight. This storm has two massive stages we have to get through. The first is ice.
Freezing rain and sleet will fall mainly north of Highway 60 tonight and into the morning hours on Sunday. Right now, I am pinpointing Webster, Wright, Texas, Laclede, and Pulaski counties as the locations to experience the highest ice accumulation. For these spots I will not be surprised to see over 0.50″ of ice. With that being said, the majority of people will see 0.1-0.25″ of ice accumulation.
To put those numbers in comparison the Historic Ice Storm of 2007 dropped over 2″ of ice across the Ozarks. I believe, worst case, we will only witness a quarter of that. Yes, that is enough ice to create power outages. Thankfully, I believe any power outages will be spotty rather than a widespread blackout.