StormTracker8: Rain early Friday; Soaker Sunday then night snow

Richmond, Va. (WRIC) -- We will have cloudy skies with a few showers and areas of drizzle through the overnight. Our overnight lows will fall between 40 to 45.

We will have another round of showers early Friday as a cold front crosses Central Virginia and then we should see some late-day breaks of sun. It will be a milder day with highs in the lower 60s.

Clouds will roll back in for Saturday, and we will have a few spotty showers with highs in the upper 50s. We are looking at a very powerful system for

As for Sunday, there is growing agreement in the weather models as to the development of the storm for Sunday but there are still some areas that are not clear. The main issues are how quickly the storm will strengthen off the coast and how much cold air will it pull into Central and Eastern Virginia and how fast will that happen.

Here is my current thinking:

Rain will begin Sunday morning between 6am and 9am and it will rain steady throughout most of Sunday. We could see between a 1/2" to 1" of rain across the region. As that storm develops off the coast it will begin to draw down colder air from the north into Virginia and that will allow the rain to mix with snow and slowly transition to all snow. That transition should begin around 4pm and continue through midnight / early Monday morning.

The slower the storm develops and strengthens the longer it will take for that full transition over to snow. Typically we do not pick up much in the way of accumulations when we have transitional storms like this one, but there have been a few exceptions and this could be just one of those times that bucks the trend. Another limiting factor to the snow accumulating will be the wet ground from the rain that occurs all day. Even though it will be a "chilly" rain with temperatures in the 40s, that will keep the ground "warm" enough to make it difficult for the snow to start to accumulate. I believe that roads will be fine for the commute on Monday and most of the snow that accumulates will be found on the grass, decks, patios and sidewalks.

While I have given you our first snowfall forecast, because I want you to know what is happening or could happen ahead of time, this is a low confidence forecast.

The snow will move out of Central and Eastern Virginia by 2am to 3am Monday morning so our window from rain to rain-snow mix and then all snow is about 8 hours.

Partly sunny skies will return for Monday with highs near 45.

Tuesday will also feature partly sunny skies with highs remaining in the middle 40s.

We will finally get back to normal by Wednesday with highs around 50 under partly sunny skies.

Our next weather system will approach the region on Thursday and bring us another round of rain with highs in the lower 50s.

Behind that system it looks like the sunshine should return for next Friday with highs in the middle 50s.