Well here we are Friday morning and many parts of West Tennessee are ending up with more snow than we had forecast this morning or last night! We'll probably end up with 2"-4" by 10am in parts of Jackson which is an inch or two more than the dusting to 2" we had forecast on Good Morning West Tennessee. Areas north of I-40 that were only expected to get a dusting are getting closer to an inch or more. That's also more than the National Weather Service or any TV outlet had forecast so we're all in the same boat. After all, we were all looking at the same data!
Let me explain...
West Tennessee usually has a liquid equivalent ratio of 1" of water equaling 10" of snow. Today, the drier air allowed that ratio to go to 1" of water equaling 15" of snow! That means if this were rain, we would have 0.15" of rain on the ground - not a lot. When the air get drier it becomes much more challenging to forecast snowfall accurately. Forecasting rainfall to the hundredth of an inch is virtually impossible.
I'm sorry if you were planning on sending the kids to school today and made a decision based on our forecast that didn't go well. Hopefully everyone can enjoy a three day weekend and stay inside today.
We'll have a full wrap up of today's snowfall totals coming up on WBBJ!
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