Posted Thursday, February 3, 2022, 5:20 PM
As expected, it was just a nasty day today across the Valley. Sleet and freezing rain made for difficult travel conditions all across the area. Area officials urge folks to just stay home if they can. Thankfully, so far power outages across Ohio have been mainly confined to counties along and south of I-70.
By the reports that I’ve seen come in today, everyone received a decent coating of ice. Here are some of the reports obtained from area residents:
- Stone Creek: 0.15″
- Newcomerstown: 0.01″
- Schoenbrunn: 0.21″
- Dover: 0.05″
- New Philadelphia: 0.20″
- New Phila airport: 0.16″
Freezing rain and sleet are likely to continue until later this evening. By 7:00/8:00 PM, we will begin to see the main band of sleet and freezing rain start to migrate southeast. Sleet/freezing rain will transition to snow. Snow showers will then continue overnight and into Friday morning.
We should start to see snow tapering off after sunrise Friday. We can, however, expect to see scattered light snow showers through the afternoon tomorrow before this storm finally pushes south and east out of the area.
Temperatures tonight will drop to the upper teens. That means that any wet or slushy areas will freeze solid. Beware of black ice under snow-covered roads if you must travel tonight through early Friday.
Snowfall rates can be moderate to heavy at times this evening and tonight. Dover and New Phila can expect to get 4″ to 6″ tonight through Friday evening. Areas north can expect a little more – areas south a little less. Everyone will end up with enough snow to shovel and plow.
It’s going to be a mess for a while yet, so if you must travel, take it easy. Road crews are out but I imagine they’re having a tough time keeping up. It will only become more of a challenge once precipitation changes to snow.
What about after the storm? Our weather will turn much quieter after the snow ends Friday evening. It’ll be cold for sure, but we won’t have to deal with any winter shenanigans over the weekend and into early next week. We’ll even get into a bit of warming next week. It won’t be exactly balmy, but warmer than we’ve seen lately.
You can grab my (local, hand-made) forecast anytime on the home page. Be EXTRA safe out there.
Thanks so much for your accurate forecasts! You were spot-on for this one!!
Thanks so much. Nice to have such thorough forecasts of our home, Tucarawas county. It sure helps us to prepare for these types of weather events.