Welcome Back, Winter! Snow, Cold, Winds in Forecast

It's been a good ride these past couple weeks as Berkley and Huntington Woods residents enjoyed unseasonably warm weather and government agencies have saved money on salt and plow drivers, but we knew its wouldn't last forever – after all, this is winter in Michigan.

Today, rain will change over to a mix of rain and snow as temperatures fall from a high near 41 degrees to just 28 degrees, according to the National Weather Service.

The mix then will change over to all snow after 10 p.m., with an accumulation of less than one inch possible overnight, and winds picking up to between 6 and 15 miles per hour with gusts as high as 21 mph, according to the NWS.

Friday will be much cooler with a high near 30 and a low around 18. Winds will continue, with gusts up to 28 mph and additional snow accumulation of 1-3 inches possible. 

Temperatures over the weekend and into next week will stay below freezing throughout the day, with a slight chance of snow showers Saturday.

The system will bring Metro Detroit more in line with weather typical for this time of year, experts say.

"The driving factor is an eastward extension of the jet stream over the western Pacific," said Joseph Clark, an NWS meteorologist in White Lake. "It looks like it won’t be enough to totally change this warm weather pattern, but it looks to change things quite a bit. We’re going to take it up a notch to something more normal."

According to Debra Elliott, another meteorologist for the NWS in White Lake, Metro Detroit has seen much less snow this year than last, as evidenced by these figures:

• January snowfall to date: 0.4 inch
• January 2011 snowfall to the 12th: 8.3 inches
• Normal for the month of January: 4.5 inches
• Since July 2011 (for the 2012 season): 6.7 inches
• Since July 2010 (for the 2011 season to Jan. 12): 17.6 inches
• Normal for the season (since July): approximately 15.7 inches

"We’re experiencing a pattern change, which is going to bring us closer to normal," said Elliott, who noted that the average annual snowfall in Detroit is 43 inches.

While the unusual weather has frustrated winter sports enthusiasts, it has been a pleasant aberration for government agencies that must pay for salt and snow plowing.

"We have spent less money on salt so far this year ... on salt truck driver overtime by about half what we normally spend and in salt by about a third. It’s still fairly early in the winter and we’re not ready to assume there will be that kind of savings for the year," Road Commission for Oakland County spokesman Craig Bryson said. "We’re not taking a huge amount of savings that would allow us to do additional projects. If that were the case, we would put that money into probably purchasing some new equipment which we desperately need.

"We’re talking, potentially in the area of hundreds of thousands of dollars and not millions," he said. "A couple of bad storms in February and we could be right back to average."