“Sunshine cannot bleach the snow, Nor time unmake what poets know.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
MANSFIELD — The Christmas holiday weekend weather picture is coming into focus.
And it offers a scene only Santa would love.
As north central Ohio “celebrates” the winter solstice on Wednesday (i.e. the shortest sunlit day of the year), it appears the best we can hope for is that it’s always darkest before the dawn.
The National Weather Service office in Cleveland on Wednesday morning issued a winter storm watch for Thursday evening through Saturday evening for a widespread area that includes Richland, Ashland and Knox counties.
Labeling it a “multi-hazard storm,” the low-pressure system coming our way has a combination of strong winds, icy temperatures and blowing snow.
The weather experts said this area should expect two to four inches of snow with wind gusts up to 60 miles per hour and wind chills spiraling as low as 30 degrees below zero.
Wind chill describes what the air temperature feels like to the human skin due to the combination of cold temperatures and winds blowing on exposed skin.
In simple terms, the colder the air temperature and the higher the wind speeds, the colder it will feel on your skin if you’re outside. So even if it remains the same temperature, but the wind speed increases it will actually feel colder to your skin.
A wind chill as low as -30 could cause frostbite on exposed skin in as little as 30 minutes.
A window of brief intense snowfall is possible with a cold frontal passage late Thursday night into Friday morning.
The rapid temperature drop could also produce a flash freeze, which could result in “black ice” due to the drop and rain/drizzle.
Flash freezing makes roads slick and very difficult to stop your vehicle. It can also be patchy and difficult to predict.
Black ice commonly forms on elevated areas like bridges and overpasses or hills where wind is not able to evaporate precipitation before the temperature drops below freezing.
Winds will increase across the area on Friday, especially Friday night, and be the main hazard for the area with blowing snow also potentially causing hazardous travel.
Strong winds could cause damage to trees, bring down power lines, and blow around unsecured objects.
Snow will attempt to fill back in across the area on Friday night into Saturday for some additional accumulation.
From Friday afternoon through Sunday, a period of almost 48 hours where temperatures remain in the single digits is possible.
Combined with the strong winds, this would allow for a long period of wind chills well below zero and increase exposure risk and infrastructure concerns across the area.
