textproduct: Grand Rapids

KEY MESSAGES

- Freezing drizzle to snow showers this a.m., then colder and windy

- Cold this weekend with a chance for light snow Sunday

- Moderating temps next week with small chances for precipitation

DISCUSSION

Issued at 321 AM EST Fri Feb 6 2026

- Freezing drizzle to snow showers this a.m., then colder and windy

We went ahead and expanded the Winter Weather Advisory through the rest of the forecast area earlier, and will keep it at least through the morning commute this morning. As expected, most automated observations are seeing reduced visibilities and mist. This continues to produce a light glaze for most areas, and causing some impacts on the roads. We do expect that we will be gradually saturating the DGZ from west to east, which will change precipitation back to snow by 12z. We continue to expect light amounts of snow once it turns over, but this will not help out the roads for the morning commute.

We expect that the widespread light snow with the short wave to our SW will pretty much exit the forecast area by late morning. Then, our attention will shift to the arctic front that will be dropping down through the area from north to south from late this morning through early this afternoon. This is expected to bring a relatively narrow broken line of snow showers with it. Some of these could be intense due to the strength of arctic fronts like this.

The passage of the front will turn winds from the NW to almost from due north. The importance of this is that as lake effect snow showers try to get going, they will pretty much affect Lake County (downwind of Grand Traverse Bay), and the immediate lakeshore. We do not anticipate needing any winter weather headlines for the lake effect as the strongest snow showers will be offshore, and even those will not be too strong with inversion heights no higher than 5k ft and anti-cyclonic flow aloft building in.

- Cold this weekend with a chance for light snow Sunday

The core of the low level cold air will come through tonight as 850 mb temperatures drop to between -17 to -20C. This cold air will just brush the forecast area, with the coldest air being over the NE portion of the forecast area. This, combined with the terrain toward Clare and Reed City, and a lack of clouds there tonight will allow them to bottom out likely near 0F. A wind remaining up around 10 mph through the night will drive down wind chills down to around -15F. With this in mind, we will match up with the neighboring offices with a Cold Weather Advisory for tonight.

Lake effect snow showers will continue to be possible tonight into early Saturday, mainly affecting Little and Big Sable Points, and maybe far SW Van Buren county. Inversion heights will be building and sinking, so intensity will only drop after today.

The chances for some light snow on Sunday have gone up a bit over the past 24 hours. All along, it has looked like that a short wave would move through. It just looked like it would not be able to produce enough moisture for any precipitation to reach the ground. Now, maybe a dusting of snow will be possible across much of the area with little to no impact.

- Moderating temps next week with small chances for precipitation

We continue have high confidence that a pattern change will be taking place next week with some of the warmest temperatures expected since mid-January. The upper ridge over the Western U.S. is still expected to shift east toward the area and build upper heights a bit. The evolution of the pattern has perhaps changed a little bit. The upper ridge flattens out a bit as it approaches with short waves riding over it, and the upper trough coming in off of the Pacific being delayed a bit.

What this means for our area is that there will be periodic chances of light precipitation through the week. We will likely have a baroclinic zone nearby, waiting to be acted on by any weak impulse coming through aloft. This is more with the southern stream, so it will be a zone between cooler air to the north and much warmer to the south. This is a setup where a wintry mix of precipitation could be possible, depending on the timing of the waves and the exact position of the boundary.

This is impossible to put any detail in at this point for exact timing, p-type, etc... What it does mean is we will have lots of small chances of precipitation, and temperatures will be closer to normal with variations expected. All of these details will be worked out over time.

AVIATION /12Z TAFS THROUGH 12Z SATURDAY/

Issued at 641 AM EST Fri Feb 6 2026

The freezing drizzle from earlier has changed over to all snow at all of the terminals. The heaviest of the snow is occurring right now, and snow will gradually end through 16z. LIFR conditions can be expected, improving to MVFR. There will be a front that moves through then late morning/early afternoon. Scattered snow showers can be expected with this. Sites that see these snow showers could go briefly IFR. Behind the front, snow showers will mainly end, but winds will pick up and cause some blowing and drifting of the freshly fallen snow.

A few snow showers may persist at KMKG after 00z, but inland areas should be mostly done with the snow showers. Winds will diminish, and some clearing could take place at KLAN and KJXN. Some lake clouds may persist elsewhere, but ceilings are expected to go VFR.

GRR WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

MI...Winter Weather Advisory until 1 PM EST this afternoon for MIZ037>040-043>046-050>052-056>059-064>067-071>074. Cold Weather Advisory from 8 PM this evening to 9 AM EST Saturday for MIZ039-040. MARINE...None.