Wednesday, January 17th, 2018 CT Snow Event Update

Not much in the way of changes to my forecast from yesterday, however, due to some concerns about snowfall mixing with and/or changing to sleet or rain across portions of southeastern CT and along the coast I have lowered snowfall totals here from 3-6'' to 2-4''. The forecast for the rest of the state remains the same with 3-6'' of snowfall expected:

While there is a possibility that a few locations could approach 6-8'' of snowfall if heavy enough banding sets up long enough I think that potential is extremely low. When looking at some ;latest bufkit profile soundings across the state, we see that the majority of the lift is well below the dendritic snowgrowth zone and with the low-level airmass on the warm-ish side, this will really hurt snowfall ratios and preclude the likelihood for those big fluffy dendrites to develop (the ones that accumulate pretty quickly):

If we are able to get better lift into the dendritic snowgrowth zone, there could be a swath of some higher snowfall totals, however, at this time there is very little consensus suggesting this scenario will unfold.

What can we expect:

• Snowfall should begin to break out between 12:00 AM and 3:00 AM Wednesday morning. 
• Snowfall will begin to pick up in intensity and vary between moderate to even heavy at times with the majority of the snows falling between 6:00 AM and 10:00 AM. This is also during the time of morning rush hour commute so expect numerous travel delays as well as school cancellations. If out traveling extra caution should be exercised. 
• Due to the warm-ish low-level airmass, snow will be on the heavier side which will maker it a bit more difficult to move. 
• The snow will begin to wind down around 11:00 AM or so with some leftover flurries into the afternoon. 
• Southeastern CT and portions of coastal CT may see a mix of sleet and even a change to rain, thus snowfall totals could be reduced here.