43
How much snow will Valley get?
Photo
In this user-submitted photos, a tree in Kinsman is home to birds toughing out the winter storm. To submit your own winter photos, e-mail weather@vindy.com.
YOUNGSTOWN
The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind.
The question is: Just how much snow are we going to get?
The expected heavy snowstorm that was to dump up to 2 feet between Sunday and today did hit some areas, including Mercer County, with about 6 inches of snow by Monday afternoon.
But many parts of Mahoning and Trumbull counties got only about an inch or so by late Monday.
“That’s the way it is with lake-effect snow,” said Tom King, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Cleveland. “It’s very hard to judge. We can say, ‘Oh, no, nothing is going to happen,’ and then something does.”
Some portions of the area could get hit hard, while other nearby places may get no snow, he said.
“Also, with the wind, it blows snow away from one location and into other locations,” King said.
The area was supposed to get between 4 to 6 inches of new snow overnight and 3 to 6 inches of new snow by this afternoon, according to the National Weather Service forecast.
Many communities want people to keep vehicles off the streets so plow crews can do their job. Among them: Liberty Township declared a parking ban until 6 p.m. Wednesday. Boardman Township’s ban is until 6 p.m. Friday. Struthers has a parking ban until further notice.
There’s a 50 percent chance of snow tonight and Wednesday with about one to two inches expected.
While the wind is helping blow some of the snow elsewhere, it’s also making it uncomfortable to be outside.
The wind speed in the area could reach 30 mph today dropping the wind chill to about five below zero this morning.
The forecast calls for Thursday to be mostly cloudy with a high in the upper 20s and for Friday to be partly sunny with a high in the upper 20s.
But if we’ve learned anything these past few days is lake-effect snow is unpredictable.