Ice, Snow To Blanket the Ohio Valley | News, Sports, Jobs

Photo by Shelley Hanson – A city of Wheeling Operations truck with a snowplow drives on Water Street beside Heritage Port on Friday. The region has received about 20 inches of snow so far this season.

WHEELING — While Wheeling might miss the worst of winter storm Landon, the weather system is still expected to blanket the region with successive waves of rain, ice and sleet over the next few days.

According to the National Weather Service in Pittsburgh, rain was projected to have begun late Wednesday and continue overnight, as temperatures drop in the evening to freeze the rain. Freezing rain is expected to continue to chill into sleet, then snow, before tapering off Friday.

Meteorologist Jason Frazier said Wheeling was far enough south as to be somewhat unpredictable with the coming weather. An incoming cold front is expected to come through at some point, which will determine when the temperatures plummet.

“When it comes to Thursday, that’s when the forecast really gets tricky, because we’ll have a cold front come in as we still have precipitation going on, and the timing of when the cold front is able to get there and push through, and the surface temperature gets to or below freezing, will determine when the rain becomes freezing rain,” Frazier said Wednesday afternoon.

“Right now, the timing is more likely to be around the late morning or afternoon period, for Wheeling, but we do expect that rain to transition to freezing rain by Thursday evening, where … it will continue into Friday morning before it changes to snow.”

Frazier said a tenth to a fifth of an inch of freezing rain is expected to accumulate, with snowfall limited to an inch or two, though changes in weather patterns could change that to include more or less rain.

“Wheeling is kind of the area where we have the most uncertainty, where it includes Pittsburgh, southwest into Ohio, where all it’s going to take is a 20-40 mile fluctuation of that (weather) front, that one or two degree difference, that can really alter what people see there on the ground,” he said. “Be prepared that there could still be more ice, and if it gets cold enough quick enough, there could be more snow at the end of this event.

“The most likely outcome is going to be a period of freezing rain, about two-tenths of an inch,” he added.

Frazier advised that the air temperature can get noticeably colder than freezing before the water on the ground freezes, leading to a discrepancy between icy weather and ice on the roads.

“The roads won’t necessarily respond right away, so there’ll probably be a little of a delay between ice on roadways versus ice on branches,” he said. “The most likely time frame where we start to see roads being impacted will be that Thursday late afternoon, evening time. … If we get that cold air a little earlier, that impact time moves up earlier as well.”

The weekend should be bright and clear, if unbearably cold. Frazier added that the region historically sees winter storms continue well into what might otherwise be considered springtime, and that Landon isn’t likely to be the last gasp of a cold and snowy winter.

“By Friday night, we’re not expecting any more precipitation,” Frazier said. “The only impact we are expecting is … pretty cold air behind it, so we’re expecting temperatures to drop to single digits for Saturday morning. Beyond that, we’re not expecting more precipitation for the rest of the weekend, and after the cold Saturday, we’ll start to warm back up by Sunday.

“My personal guess is that this isn’t going to be the last bit (of winter) to deal with, but at least for the time being, before the upcoming week, it’s the only system of note,” he added. “Winter, especially around here, we could still see systems into April. It’s around those months where we can say it’s the last gasp.”