StormTracker8: Changes in the track to the weekend storm

Richmond, Va. (WRIC) -- Mainly clear skies to be with us for this evening and tonight and it will be a cold night with lows in the upper single digits to near 10 across Metro Richmond while many areas to the northwest and west could drop back into the lower single digits.

We will see sunny skies for Thursday but it will remain cold with highs in the upper 20s when you factor in the wind our wind chills will be in the lower to middle 20s.

Clouds will move into the region during Friday as a weather system begins to push our way from the Tennessee valley. This will be part of the winter storm that we are watching for the weekend. Our high temperatures on Friday will top out in the upper 20s.

Now let's talk about that winter storm. As I mentioned, a weather system will pushing our way from the southern Tennessee Valley as we get into Friday night and early Saturday morning. That system will transfer its energy to the coast of South Carolina where a new coastal weather system will develop. That system will rapidly deepen, or as you might hear on the national news “Bomb out” or “Bomb Cyclone” and begin to develop snow across central Virginia. It looks like snow will continue from Saturday into Saturday night and early Sunday and then that coastal system will pull out to sea. Now the exact track of that newly developed Coastal system is still in question, however it is a good bet that we will see light to moderate snow for many areas a long and south of I-64 all the way into the Tidewater, and based on what we're seeing now it is probably a better bet that places in the Tidewater or even eastern North Carolina will see more accumulating snow than many in central Virginia. Our high temperatures on Saturday will top out in the middle 20s.

Those cold temperatures will also allow for a very powdery or fluffy snow. You might have heard the old saying that one inch of rain equals 10 inches of snow and that's a general rule of thumb but with this Arctic air in place it is a good bet that this snow will be more along the lines of 1 inch of rain would equal 15” of snow. Now the models that we are looking at are not putting out an inch of rain, in fact they are putting out quite a bit less. But again, there is a wide deviation in the models as to the track and therefore the amount of that moisture so to predict exact snowfall amounts right now is not possible.

That snow will end early Sunday morning and then we will see mostly cloudy skies for the rest of the day. It will be windy and cold with highs in the middle 20s.

Sunny skies will return for Monday, and it will be a cold day with highs around 32.

As we look into the middle to end of next week, we will finally see a gradual warming trend from the middle 30s on Tuesday to around 40 by Thursday under partly to mostly sunny skies.