A "robust" winter storm is heading toward the area. Snow is expected to start Sunday morning, and continue into Monday around Cincinnati.
National Weather Service Meteorologist John Franks says in some places, the snow will come down hard.
“I would wager that one or two areas is going to see 3 inches of snow in an hour with this storm,” he says. “These aren’t going to be the norm, but 1 to maybe 2 inches of snow in an hour? I think a lot of the area has the potential for seeing that.”
Franks says those places could end up with about a foot of snow. He says it will be “the kind of snow you can hear landing.”
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He says such amounts are not common, but it does happen. "Back in January of '23, we had about 4 to 6 inches of snow in the Tri-State," he says. "And then back in February 8th and 9th of 2021, there was 6 to 10 inches of snow across the Tri-State."
“There’s going to be a fairly sharp cut-off to the north, probably closer to Dayton and northwards,” he adds. “Dayton area is not going to be receiving that foot. This is going to be mainly centered on the Tri-State.”
The storm is from a strong, surface low pressure system. He says it’s pulling warm air from the south and cold air from the north in a counter-clockwise direction.
“The warm air being pulled up means that there’s going to be a higher potential for freezing rain — especially since we’re starting out well below freezing temperatures, in the mid-20s,” he says. “So it’s not like you’re going to warm up, or that you’re going to start with a warm ground and have some of that rain be OK to begin with.”
Franks says ground temperatures are below freezing, so whatever falls, snow or ice, it’s not going to run off.
“Once it starts raining you want to not be out driving.”
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He says generally, freezing rain and ice will be south of Cincinnati, although it’s possible some places north of the Ohio River could see ice. And he says ice and freezing rain are not guaranteed.
“This may end up being an all-snow event and Northern Kentucky gets a whole bunch of snow,” Franks says. “But the worse case scenario down there is significant rain.”
Franks says a quarter of an inch of freezing rain will bring down a lot of tree limbs and power lines.
A winter storm watch goes into effect for the area Sunday morning, and continues until Monday evening.
