A good bet is at least 3 to 6 inches of snow, according to Scioto County Emergency Management Services Director Kim Carver. The National Weather Service is predicting hazardous weather for the area over the next several days. “We are under a winter storm watch for the potential for 4 to 8 inches of snow from this event,” she said.

The storm warning calls for snow and ice.

A mix of freezing rain and snow will overspread the area this morning with light ice accumulation possible. The precipitation will transition to a rain and snow mixture by late this morning and afternoon.

The precipitation is expected to become all snow by this evening, with occasional snow continuing into Saturday afternoon.

Total snowfall accumulations of 3 to 5 inches are expected, as well as light ice accumulations.

Carver said there is a system that has continually brought cold temperatures and precipitation during this winter season.

“It’s a sub-tropical jet stream that keeps bringing a pipeline of winter storms our way,” Carver said. “And unfortunately there is just enough cold air that meets up with the moisture from the Gulf of Mexico when it gets here, and we’ve had frozen precipitation events here in February.”

According to the National Weather Service at Wilmington a winter storm will impact much of the Ohio Valley today and Saturday.

“Again it’s one of those difficult-to-forecast storms that it depends on the exact track of the timing of the cold air, and the moisture moving up,” Carver said. “It has been tough for forecasters to peg this one.”

Carver said that while some forecasts differ in amounts of precipitation being forecast, there is a thread that runs through all of them.

“We have some agreement with the models in the fact that there is going to be some accumulating snow,” Carver said. “And there will probably be a variety of frozen precipitation at the beginning of the storm event.”

Carver said variables in the storm will determine where and how much precipitation will accumulate.

“They’re pegging the largest amount of snow now to be along the I-70 corridor. Then, everything north and south of that would have lesser amounts of snow,” Carver said. “But again it’s one of those things that if that axis for the heavy snow goes one way a little bit more than the other, then somebody else is going to get the heavier snow.”

FRANK LEWIS can be reached at (740) 353-3101, ext. 232 or flewis@heartlandpublications.com