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LCZ460 Lake St Clair- 956 Pm Est Mon Dec 4 2023
Rest of tonight..West winds 5 to 10 knots in the late evening and early morning becoming light and variable. Mostly cloudy. Waves 2 feet or less.
Tuesday..Light and variable winds. Cloudy with a chance of light snow showers. Waves 2 feet or less.
Tuesday night..North winds 5 to 10 knots becoming northwest 10 to 15 knots in the late evening and overnight. Mostly cloudy in the evening becoming partly cloudy. Waves 2 feet or less.
Wednesday..Northwest winds 10 to 15 knots becoming west 5 to 10 knots early in the afternoon. Mostly Sunny. Waves 2 feet or less.
Wednesday night..West winds 10 to 15 knots becoming southwest 15 to 20 knots in the late evening and overnight. Mostly cloudy. Waves 1 to 3 feet.
Thursday..Southwest winds 15 to 20 knots diminishing to 10 to 15 knots in the evening. Mostly cloudy becoming partly Sunny in the afternoon becoming mostly clear. Waves 1 to 3 feet.
Friday..Southwest winds 15 to 20 knots. Mostly cloudy. Waves 1 to 3 feet.
Saturday..South winds 10 to 15 knots. Mostly cloudy with light showers likely. Waves 2 feet or less.

LCZ400
No data

FXUS63 KDTX 051058 AFDDTX

Area Forecast Discussion National Weather Service Detroit/Pontiac MI 558 AM EST Tue Dec 5 2023


AVIATION

Solid MVFR deck across the region as the moisture continues to stream into the area ahead of the low pressure center entering northern IL this morning. The low will track SE across IN and OH today, bringing deteriorating conditions across southern MI. IFR CIGS and reduced VSBYs to the north of the low with light snow showers will pass over the Detroit area taf sites around 16-20Z this afternoon. Could see some rain/snow mix but the column should be cold enough during the peak to give mostly wet snow. No accumulations are expected outside of a dusting possibly on grassy/elevated surfaces.
Dry conditions with CIGS holding MVFR likely for FNT and mbS being far removed from the weak forcing. Questions come into play for CIGS during the overnight. Models want to strip out moisture but satellite shows alot of stratus out there. So will keep a pessimistic forecast until the hires gets a better handle and we can follow satellite trends for a while.

For DTW...Flurries will be possible this morning but the best chance of seeing light snow will be around 16-20Z. Current expectation is for minimal accumulations of a tenth or two generally confined to grassy/elevated surfaces.

DTW THRESHOLD PROBABILITIES

* High in ceilings below 5000 feet through this evening. Medium for tonight.

* High for p-type to be snow with some melting snow potentially mixing in this afternoon.

PREV DISCUSSION
Issued at 340 AM EST Tue Dec 5 2023

DISCUSSION...

A deep polar trough will force 1000-500mb geopotential height falls and midlevel low pressure southeastward today along a line from the Quad Cities Iowa towards Cincinnati Ohio. Interest probably remains in what the precipitation chances will be here in Southeast Michigan as at first glance there has been some modest uptick in QPF amounts from solutions 24 hours ago. Very weak forcing remains in play for far Southeast Lower Michigan with the models hinting at some duration during the daylight hours. Really not identifying much in the way sustained lift nor a favorable thermodynamic profile for snow generation. Rather, it will all come down to forced lift in the low levels, which is questionable considering the system only provides a glancing shot to the forecast area as it passes south.
Plan view perspective of isentropic surfaces with system relative wind suggests any upglide on frontal surfaces will remain below 750mb. There are a couple of issues with this: 1. The top of the UVV only touches -10 C 2. Lapse rates remain relatively stable in the lowest 6.0 kft agl. The day shift yesterday increased PoPs and added a little more QPF to forecast. Will honor and respect the depth of moisture and the modest frontal surface that is progged to be over the Wayne and Washtenaw County area at 18Z. From a model QPF perspective, there are different runs suggesting front end QPF will be burned in saturating the column. Then as precipitation occurs surface temperatures are expected to be above freezing. Will continue to highlight the recent NBM probability output gives a 24 hour 50th percentile of snow at 0.0 inches. Latest iterations of the time lagged ensemble output provides a 70% chance of 0.1 inch of snow and less than 10% chance for a half inch at DTW. Its always easy finding a snow accumulation on elevated surfaces or a swept snow board, but expecting more of a combination of flurries, virga or melting snowflakes.

Modest cold advection will occur tonight in the presence of north northwesterly flow. Early season Lake Huron temperatures with the midlevel cold air is expected to lead to lake effect in the middle of the lake. Could very well see some lake effect activity brush the immediate shoreline areas. The current forecast has a slight chance for snow showers tonight. However, there appears to be enough of a westerly component to the wind to keep most activity out over the lake. Not looking at a mature radiatively forced surface anticyclone to push any banding back westward.

Progressive polar vorticity trough will propagate rapidly to far eastern North American and the Atlantic Ocean Wednesday night. This will open the door to tremendous midlevel warm advection pushing into the state. This will provide for synoptic scale lift Wednesday night invof Lake Huron. These setups are always sensitive to timing which makes it difficult. Saturation in the lowest 7.0 kft agl is the uncertain part of the Wednesday night forecast. Thermal progs support all snow if the column can saturate. If precipitation can develop/fall across the Thumb region could be looking at a short duration burst that would result in some minor accumulation.

Sprawling Southeast United States high pressure will lead to increasing southwesterly return flow on Thursday and Friday.
Differential warm advection aloft Thursday will likely compromise mixing heights. Highs Thursday will be in the middle 40s. However, another day of warming will bring deeper warm air at the surface and higher mixing heights for Friday. Breezy conditions will be likely Friday afternoon with southwest winds 20 to 30 mph. Highs Friday and Saturday will likely exceed 50 degrees, some 10 to 15 degrees above normal.

MARINE...

Generally quiet marine conditions anticipated across most of Lake Huron today under uniform NW flow, while the southern marine zones will be a bit more active as a weak clipper system tracks across the Ohio Valley. Impacts of this system generally stay south of Lake Huron where a more variable wind field develops in response to the low pressure center, although wind speeds will be light. Main show with the clipper is a period of snow beginning around daybreak and lingering through the evening, again staying mainly south of Lake Huron. Snowfall rates will be highest over western Lake Erie but overall unimpressive and capable of just minor reductions to visibility. High pressure fills in behind the clipper, maintaining a light wind field and NW flow across the Great Lakes through mid- week. Will have to keep an eye on southern Lake Huron convergence, where lake effect snow showers may linger into Wednesday. Southwest flow develops by late week in advance of a strong low pressure system set to impact the Great Lakes this weekend-early next week.

DTX WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES
MI...None.
Lake Huron...None.
Lake St Clair...None.
Michigan waters of Lake Erie...None.

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