Here we go again.

Is Lancaster County due for its first plowable snow Friday night into Saturday? Maybe even up to 9 inches, as one computer model shows?

Or will it be another gloppy snow-to-sleet-to-rain event, again stranding those new Christmas sleds?

Since the clipper system is just now coming off the Pacific Ocean, no one and no computer knows for sure.

But here's the range in the weather forecast sweepstakes:

• AccuWeather is predicting the storm system will take a more southern track, bringing Lancaster County 1-3 inches of pure snow late Friday night and another 3-6 inches during the day Saturday.

     AccuWeather Forecast

• WGAL meteorologist Joe Calhoun said this morning that the system looks like a snow-maker to him; he predicts several inches, a "plowable snow."

• Millersville University meteorologist Eric Horst is taking a markedly more cautionary stance in the early going, saying it's just as likely we will get an inch or two of snow, then a changeover to sleet and finally rain.

"We're probably going to see some snow, but whether it's a sloppy 1 to 3 or a more snow lover's 3 to 6, tune in tomorrow."

Horst said that the storm, since it's coming off the ocean, packs more moisture than the typical hit-and-run Alberta Clipper system that's common in these parts this time of year.

"It will have more moisture, but it all comes down to the track of the clipper," he cautions.

Horst wonders if warmer air will be pulled from the Atlantic and force a changeover to sleet and rain, as has been the pattern here in recent weeks.

At this point, with computer models showing differing scenarios, he's inclined to predict 3-6 inches of snow falling in Pennsylvania north of Interstate 80.

Less uncertain, he says, is the possibility that we'll see the coldest temperatures of the season moving in by mid-week. With any kind of snow cover, low temperatures will be near the single digits for several days.


Staff writer Ad Crable can be reached at acrable@LNPnews.com or 481-6029.