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Winter Weather Watch: 4-7" Of Snow Accumulation Expected For Pittsburgh Area

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- Good morning, here comes the snow. Beginning shortly after noon on Wednesday, snow is expected to arrive and we won't see the snow stopping for about 12 hours.

Weather
(Photo Credit: KDKA Weather Center)

At this point, model data is going crazy with total accumulating snow.

This system could be a historic December weather system.

If you're just going by raw model output, it appears that most places should expect to see at least 4" of snow and that is on the low side.

Weather
(Photo Credit: KDKA Weather Center)

For an example, the GFS this morning is showing snow totals of 5-6" of snow at just a 10:1 ratio.

We never see a 10:1 snow ratio here so you'd honestly be looking at 6-8" range just based on model data.

Another one in front of me is the Euro.

It's showing a 10:1 ratio of 7-8" of snow!

I do have some concerns this morning that model data is overdoing things.

Weather
(Photo Credit: KDKA Weather Center)

I just need to go back to two winters ago when this almost exact same setup was forecast to give us similar snow totals.

We saw nearly all rain. Just now reading the NWS forecast discussion it appears they have some concerns as well.

So let's start by talking about what we should expect.

Winter storm watches have been posted for Allegheny County and the donut counties surrounding the county.

The only county not listed right now is Beaver.

The winter storm watch/warning will go into effect at 7:00 a.m. on Wednesday and goes through 7:0 a.m. on Thursday.

Weather
(Photo Credit: KDKA Weather Center)

There are already winter storm warnings posted for the center of the state.

This is a major winter storm that will blanket most of the New England states in 4" or more of snow.

It appears the highest totals will be for places like New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Maine.

So why are we going to see so much snow? A moisture wrapped area of low pressure will slide over W. Virginia and into New England states, becoming what we call a nor'easter as it quickly sees a pressure drop.

Windy conditions and lots of snow will follow with the highest of the snow totals falling in places like New Hampshire, Maine and Rhode Island.

Behind the system, we stay overcast with another brief round of snow expected on Friday.

Snow will likely be on the ground through at least Saturday and probably through the entire weekend.

Weather
(Photo Credit: KDKA Weather Center)

At this point it looks like temperatures will be warm enough on Sunday for us to see light rain.

I do caution that snow on the ground will likely pull forecast highs down 2-5 degrees each day and may have an impact on our weekend precipitation chances.

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