Wintry mix arrives Thursday morning, low impacts to travel

Meteorological winter is known as the coldest three month period of the calendar year. 

However, you wouldn't know its winter as snowfall has lacked big-time along with the fact that it's been extremely mild. So much so that 20 of December's days have come in above-average, which includes the 3rd warmest Christmas on record. 

   

All in all, bad news for snow-lovers. However, a slow-moving system over the Midwest will track south of the region come Thursday. 

On the low's northern side, a wave of precipitation is expected to slide in off of Lake Michigan. One that may bring some wintry precipitation. Now, it goes without saying that an event like this at this time of the year favors snow. But, before one gets too excited, other aspects of the forecast will severely impact precipitation type and accumulations. 

With that being said, we can expect the chance for a snow/wintry mix to arrive shortly after sunrise, continuing into the late-morning hours

Again, impacts to the morning commute, if any, will be low as pavement temperatures will be too warm from the rather mild December we've had. 

In fact, the best chance for any accumulations with Thursday's event will be to our north and west. A changeover to rain will then occur by the afternoon as temperatures become warm enough.

Any snow that does manage to fall will melt quickly because of the changeover and because highs are to peak in the upper 30s.

Precipitation will linger well into Thursday evening, potentially into the early stage of Friday. As the low pulls away, the effects of a high pressure system to our northwest will quiet things down. Expect Friday afternoon to feature a bit more sunshine, with highs climbing back into the low 40s.