Clouds will return Saturday morning after a clear and snow free overnight, but then snow showers will return, Storm Center 7 Chief Meteorologist Jamie Simpson said Friday night.
Snow showers that hit the region late Friday afternoon and stretched into early evening measured up to an inch on grass in spots across Preble, Montgomery and Greene counties.
In the late afternoon, heavy snowfall was reported in Trotwood, Dayton, Fairborn and Springfield. At about 3:30 p.m., News Center 7 viewers reported near whiteout conditions in the area of I-675 and Dayton-Yellow Springs Road, as well as in the Springboro area.
The last of the snow moved out of the area at about 8 p.m. Evening temperatures that fell below freezing, coupled with untreated roads, made for icy roads in spots through the evening.
Those conditions were blamed in part for a single-vehicle crash on Jasper Road in Greene County, south of Jamestown, and another one-car accident on Bigger Road in Kettering. The victims in each of those accidents were said to have suffered injuries not believed to be life-threatening, according to authorities in those jurisdictions.
During the snow showers, Simpson captured images of graupel — soft hail — in Greene County. He said that type of precipitation is a hail stone that starts as a snowflake instead of a raindrop.
“As the snowflake falls into air that is above freezing the outer surface melts,” he said. “(Updrafts) carry the water coated snowflake back up into the cloud where it refreezes. This typically only happens a few times, and thus graupel has no chance of ever growing as large as some true hailstones.”
The resulting tiny hailstones, characterized by their rough edges, look like white Dippin’ Dots ice cream, Simpson said.
Temperatures on Saturday will start in the upper teens and end in the mid to upper 20s. Skies will clear again by Saturday night and temperatures will drop back into the low to mid teens to start the day on Sunday.
Despite a good amount of sun, temperatures Sunday will not reach freezing in the afternoon.
“Monday we could see close to a 30-degree rise as sun and a good southwest breeze will boost us from low 20s at sunrise to near 5o degrees in the afternoon,” Simpson said.
Rain will likely hold off until Monday evening, but then continue through the night into Tuesday and end as light snow by early Tuesday afternoon.
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