StormTracker 8: Winter Storm Tuesday; significant snow possible

RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) - A very tricky winter storm will move into Central Virginia Tuesday morning and exit early Wednesday. This will bring a variety of weather from snow to sleet and rain to the region and because of that Tuesday is a VIPIR Alert Day. I will break that system down in the forecast below.

For the afternoon we will have mostly cloudy to partly sunny skies with highs in the middle 40s.

Tonight, will be looking at clouds rolling back in with Lowe's in the upper 20s to near 30.

Our more impressive storm comes in on Tuesday and this winter storm will bring a variety of weather to Central Virginia.

Right now, it looks like we will start off with snow developing between 9:00 a.m. and 10:00 a.m. and that snow will last for a while. During the afternoon from south to north we will start to see sleet and rain work its way into this system. I think that mixture will make it all the way up into Metro Richmond however for areas north of Doswell you should stay as mainly snow and have the higher accumulations. Right now, I would say for areas right along the Virginia-North Carolina line you're looking at about a dusting to 2" of snow before your transition over to rain and you will have rain for most of the event. We expect that changeover to rain to happen between 2pm -4pm.

For Petersburg and the Tri-Cities out to Williamsburg and to the west across Nottoway and Lunenburg counties you could have 2" - 4" of snow and sleet before changing over to rain. The changeover to sleet and then rain will happen between 4pm and 7pm in this area.

Most of Metro Richmond will pick up 4"-7" of snow before that change over to sleet and finally rain. Currently, we think that the change over to sleet and then rain will happen between 6pm and 9pm.

For areas north of Doswell you will pick up 7"-10" of snow and there might be a little sleet mixing in but this should mainly be snow for you.

This is a very tricky forecast, and the accumulations will vary greatly based on the amount of mixing that you receive.

This system will be out of here early Wednesday morning, but another system will be moving in and that will bring us the risk of rain by Wednesday afternoon and evening. That rain will continue into Thursday. Our high temperatures on Wednesday will top out in the upper 30s to the near 40.

The rain comes to an end on Thursday, and we should see mostly cloudy skies for the afternoon with highs in the lower 40s.

Friday which is Valentine's Day should feature partly sunny skies with highs in the middle 40s.

Another weather system comes our way Saturday and this will bring us rain with highs in the mid-40s.

That system may still give us rain early Sunday morning before departing and some sunshine returns later in the day and it will be seasonable with highs near 55.

Looking ahead to next Monday we should see partly sunny skies with highs in the lower 40s.