The winter storm watch for the lakes region has been upgraded to a winter storm warning.
Radar indicates light snow has overspread the lakes region but I don't see any out the window just yet. Within an hour or two it should start reaching the ground.
The pressure remains high at 30.61 and is only now beginning to fall slowly. At the same time the temperatures are still in the low 20s. This cold air combined with high pressure (very heavy air mass) should make it difficult for the warm air to reach the surface today, and as a result I think we'll see a fair amount of icing. The National Weather Service is currently predicting between 1/4 and 1/2-inch of ice which I think is a reasonable estimate. It is more than we've had in at least a couple of years.
The text of the winter storm warning states that wind of 35 mph at times will combine with the ice accumulation to down tree limbs. At
Black Cat it is already gusting to 39 mph and is increasing.
Since this is a Friday night there is a lot of potential traffic that may head for the lakes region from points south (where the storm will be mostly rain). This year's snowstorms on peak travel days have resulted in highway closures from the volume of simultaneous accidents, and therefore I think a repeat performance is possible tonight. It's been at least a couple years since we've driven in a decent ice storm.