SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2019 LOCAL4CAST by TIM JONES

Periods of light freezing rain and freezing drizzle continue tonight, although there may be a lull in the activity overnight. As daybreak Saturday approaches, snow will begin to move into western part of the Local4 viewing area.

Through the morning, freezing drizzle around the Tri-Cities will transition to snow as the snow moves east from Western Nebraska. Snow will continue to transition eastward from Central to Eastern Nebraska through the rest of the day. In Southeast Nebraska, thundershowers could transition to thundersnow. Snowfall rates look to be higher the farther south and southeast you go. Areas in the far northwest may end out with very little additional accumulating snow. Snow will come to an end out west in the afternoon. It should come to an end around sunset around the Tri-Cities. It should clear out of the state by the mid to late evening hours. While there are still questions to snowfall amounts, totals could range from around an inch north of the Tri-Cities to 2 to 5 inches around the Tri-Cities. The highs totals of 4 to 7 inches are expected across far Southern Nebraska and Northern Kansas.

It's important to not get too caught up in snowfall totals, because of more importance will be the fact than wind speeds will be increasing through the day Saturday. Some of the strongest wind speeds will correspond with the time period of heaviest snow. Winds could gusts as high as 45 to 55 mph. This means that blizzard or near blizzard conditions are possible. This will make travel extremely difficult to even impossible.

Another concern with the strong winds will be the ice covered trees and power lines. Power outages, although not highly likely, are still possible.

Even as snow comes to an end Saturday night, blowing snow will still be possible through the night. Wind will gradually die down through the night, but remain a little breezy into Sunday morning. The winds may remain strong enough for some patchy blowing snow during the day Sunday in Eastern Nebraska.

Sunshine will return Sunday, and may in fact be the sunniest day we see for the rest of February. But temperatures will be fairly cold in the 10s north and 20s south. Those kinds of temperature in the 10s and 20s will continue through the final day of February next Thursday. Lows will mostly be in the single digits. Most of next week will feature partly to mostly cloudy skies. While not in the official seven day forecast, there could be some periods of very light snow. None of these chances look to be much of an issue at this point.