Wintry weather expected for some of East Texas starting Thursday

EAST TEXAS — Our news partner KETK, and their Chief Meteorologist Cason Vickroy, have posted the following concerning winter weather in the East Texas area. “We had our coldest morning across the area this season, with temperatures in the low to middle 20s. This will be the case for Tuesday & Wednesday morning as well.”

“We won’t see any rain or any other type of precipitation for Tuesday & Wednesday. Thursday, that expectation changes. We could see a mixture of precipitation starting as early as Thursday morning and continuing on a on & off basis throughout the Day and through Thursday night. I expect all precipitation to come to an end Friday morning. While we won’t show accumulation totals until tomorrow’s update, for some East Texas snow accumulations are likely. Along in north of I-20 will have the best chance at seeing accumulating snow while areas in Deep East Texas will probably get by with a rain-snow mix or a cold rain without much in the way of accumulations. Athens, Tyler, Longview, Jefferson, Marshall, Palestine, Jacksonville, Henderson, & Carthage and other cities in the pink will be in the “wintery battle zone. ”

This is where the viability of accumulations will be based on how the temperatures behave. For this region, I have a range of forecast temps ranging between 28-34 degrees. If we’re in the 28-32 range, that increases our chance of accumulating snow. If we see a temperature range of 32-34, this will mean less snow and more mix/rain.

One thing to note, We’ll see some cold nights in the run up to this storm. Colder surface temperatures may help to keep us cold. If we’re colder than what models are suggesting Wednesday night that will also keep us colder through the duration of the event. Temperatures will struggle to warm Thursday with precipitation most of the day. For those looking at model data, please note that some of those solutions give us a snow-water ratio of 10:1 (10? of snow for 1? of rain). With temperatures expected to be around a freezing that ratio will dropped by at least half with a higher water content in each snowflake. Needless to say, the models are probably overestimating the snowfall totals.

As said before, this IS NOT a repeat of 2021. A lot can still change with regards to expectations, but temperatures will be about 30 degrees warmer than what we saw back then. We’ll keep you updated!