WeatherFanatics: Snow to Hit Quickly on First Weekend of Spring

By Alex Sosnowski, Expert Senior Meteorologist

March 20,2014; 9:11PM.EDT

There will be two fast-moving areas of snow to watch during the first weekend of spring: One will spread over the northern tier states and the other will hit part of the Mid-South.
The areas of snow and the return of colder air will put another damper on outdoor activities. Where the snow falls at night into the morning hours, another round of travel problems are possible.
A stripe of accumulating snow is forecast to reach from parts of North Dakota, northern Minnesota, northern Wisconsin, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to upstate New York and northern New England, as well as neighboring areas of Canada.
A few inches of snow can fall in part of this swath as it moves along from west to east spanning Friday and Saturday.

Cities in the path of the spring snowfall include Fargo, N.D.; Duluth, Minn.; Sault Ste. Marie, Mich.; Watertown, N.Y.; Burlington, Vt.; Caribou, Maine; Toronto, Ontario; and Montreal.
A second area that may experience a change to a wintry mix or a period of accumulating snow will reach from parts of northern Arkansas and southern Missouri to portions of Kentucky, northern Tennessee, southwestern Virginia and southern West Virginia.
The timing for this southern wintry precipitation is Saturday night over the Central states to Sunday morning over the Appalachians.

According to Senior Meteorologist Henry Margusity, "As long as that southern storm system remains weak, it is likely fail to bring accumulating snow over the I-95 mid-Atlantic on Sunday, but it will have to be watched."
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A warm Saturday will precede the snow in the Mississippi and Ohio valley states, as well as the southern Appalachians and mid-Atlantic. High temperatures are forecast to be near 60 F at Cape Girardeau, Mo., in the 60s F around London, Ky., and close to 70 F near Roanoke, Va., on Saturday.
Folks traveling along the I-64, I-77 and I-81 corridors in this area may want to keep an eye on the storm.
As has been the case so many times in recent weeks, the atmosphere is certainly capable of doing a 180-degree flip from one day to the next in terms of temperature and precipitation.
Much colder air will advance to the east and south from the Mississippi River Valley to much of the Atlantic coast Saturday night and Sunday.
The fresh push of cold air could set the stage for another storm and a more broad area of snow Tuesday into Wednesday of next week from portions of the South to the mid-Atlantic and New England.

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