Accumulating snow will make for hazardous travel Sunday

An Alberta Clipper system tracking out of the Dakotas tonight will move across our area Saturday night into Sunday with an extended period of steady snow. With the system looking a bit more robust we’ve issued a Weather Alert for that period. The National Weather Service has already issued some Winter Weather Advisories south and east of Charleston and it’s likely more counties will be added on Saturday.

While amounts with this system aren’t expected to be the biggest…a cold ground and the fact that Sunday is one of the bigger travel days of the year makes for a hazardous combination that will make it difficult to get around…especially in the morning.

Also, this will essentially be the first true Winter test for the lowlands this season. While mountains dealt with significant snow last Friday and Saturday the valley roads were mostly wet.

Saturday will be fine locally for travel….just cold and brisk in spite of some sunshine finally returning. However, if you’re heading west on I-64 toward Lexington and Louisville snow will start falling and sticking around sundown there.

For us snow should pick up mid-late evening and start to really impact roads closer to or after midnight. That snow will fall at a steady slip through Sunday morning and by midday most of us should have 1 to 3″ on the ground. Mountains can pick up additional accumulation into the afternoon.

Unlike the storm a week ago where road temperatures were still quite mild and snow melted on surfaces…this time around the flakes will stick…and road conditions both in the mountains and valleys will be very messy for the first half of Sunday.

By Sunday afternoon roads in the lowlands should trend more wet with some slush even with flakes still falling at times. Mountain road conditions will remain dicey…but if you can avoid travel in the morning that would be recommended.