Forecast Discussion
It has been a fairly quiet year when it comes to winter weather across Southern Ontario so far. But as we ring in the New Year, it appears that our lack of wintery weather will come to an end as a potential snowstorm takes aim at Southern Ontario. The precipitation will begin late Saturday and continue into Sunday morning/afternoon with the worst conditions expected during the overnight on Saturday. This system will also be accompanied by wind gusts ranging from 30-50km/h which may bring the potential for some blowing snow and reduced visibility out on the roads.
We will start the first morning of the New Year on Saturday with some scattered showers and temperatures a few degrees above the freezing mark. A second round of precipitation is expected to reach our region by the afternoon on Saturday starting with the Windsor area and spreading towards the northeast later in the day. It will likely start as some rain for those closer to Lake Erie and Lake Ontario shoreline, but colder air will flow in from the northwest as this storm moves through the region which will allow for a change over to some wet snow by the early evening.
Further north, the cooldown will have already occurred before the precipitation starts so it should come down as mainly just snow. Eastern Ontario will also see some rain or mixing as the system reaches them by the evening which will switch over to snow by midnight. Moderate to heavy snowfall will continue overnight and into Sunday morning. We should start to see some clearing just after sunrise on Sunday starting with those in the west and by the afternoon for Eastern Ontario.