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Forecast a mixed bag of snow, rain, ice

A winter storm that could include rain, ice and as much as 6 inches of snow in the Burlington area is predicted to move through Friday night into Saturday.

 

After a blast of cold Canadian air at midweek, a potent storm system will take aim at the central United States late this week, according to meteorologists with Accuweather.

As the storm impacts the West Coast, bitterly cold air will settle in across the Plains and Great Lakes through Thursday, laying the groundwork for accumulating snowfall across the northern tier of the United States late week.

The storm system will begin to take shape beginning Thursday night across the southern and central Plains.

According to the National Weather Service’s Sullivan office on Thursday:

“The next weather system to affect southern Wisconsin will bring accumulating snow and possibly a wintry mix to the area from later Friday afternoon into Saturday.

“There remains some uncertainty on the exact track of the weekend system as well as the amount of mixed precipitation later Friday night into early Saturday. However travel impacts are likely. Snowfall of 3 to 7 inches is expected at this time, with light icing less than one-tenth inch.

“Wind chills are expected to fall to 10 to 20 below zero Saturday night, and again Sunday night.”

Accuweather meteorologists concur:

Where enough cold air remains in place, accumulating snow will spread across the northern tier on Friday. Snow is expected to pile up across a wide swath of the northern Plains and Midwest during the daytime hours, according to Accuweather.

After starting out as snow late in the day on Friday in Chicago, warmer air creeping into the area could bring a brief window of freezing rain, then plain rain by Saturday morning before drying out later in the day.

Precipitation will likely fall as all snow Friday night, then could transition over to plain rain during the day on Saturday.

The transition to plain rain will be short-lived across the Midwest on Saturday, however, as cold and blustery conditions will accompany the backside of the storm system by Saturday night.

Most of the snow will wrap up by Saturday night across the Midwest, leaving a swath of 6-12 inches of fresh powder. Portions of Minnesota, Wisconsin and northern Michigan, will get over a foot of snow before the end of the weekend.

Accuweather predictions put the Burlington area in a swath of snow from 3 to 6 inches total.

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