I will agree with a tweet by the Grand Rapids National Weather Service yesterday afternoon, that forecasting exactly where the heaviest snow will end up today has not been all that easy. Still there has been a clear shift to the southeast over time with the forecast heavy snow amounts.
Below shows the GFS forecast model (from Tropical Tidbits) total snowfall forecast from the 12z (7 am EST ) model run for the past 5 days. On the second slide, I have the NAM forecast for today also.
Note the clear shift in the axis of the heaviest snowfall from Monday through today. Monday the GFS had the heaviest snow near I-96, by Wednesday the heaviest snowfall shifted so south of line from Saginaw to Holland. On this morning’s runs of the GFS and NAM, and for that matter the HRRR numerous hours in a row, plus the HREF, all have the heavy snow south of Grand Rapids to near Lansing to near Saginaw.
One other point about this, just about every run has an area with over a foot of snow. This storm has great upper level and mid level support plus Gulf Moisture to help it’s cause. So, there will be an area of heavy wet snow with this storm, but likely it will stay south of a line from Saginaw to Grand Rapids.
Actually once you get north of a line from Muskegon to Houghton Lake, there may not be any snow at all from this storm!
With temperatures near freezing, it will be a heavy wet snow. With at storm center being below 978 mb currently ( 2 pm), this storm will feature a fair amount of wind this evening but it is questionable given how wet the snow will be if it will blow around much. Still travel over Michigan, south of Grand Rapids will be challenging by mid evening. The snowfall should end around midnight.
I am thinking were I live in Grandville may only see an inch or two from this storm. We shall see tomorrow morning!
themarinocast 