textproduct: Grand Rapids

KEY MESSAGES

- Very light freezing rain possible tonight north of US-10

- Warm Tuesday, low chances for precipitation Tuesday night

- Accumulating snow possible this weekend

DISCUSSION

Issued at 301 AM EST Mon Feb 9 2026

- Very light freezing rain possible tonight north of US-10

Model guidance has been consistent with barely brushing the northern forecast area with precipitation in the tonight/Tuesday morning timeframe associated with a clipper system. Low level warm advection will increase today as the surface high slides east of the area. Precipitation that occurs tonight will driven by system-relative isentropic ascent associated with the warm advection. 09/00Z HREF guidance gives a nearly 100 percent chance of 850mb temperatures reaching or exceeding 2 degrees C over our northern CWA around midnight tonight. This is sufficient for total melting of hydrometeors, meaning that freezing rain would be the most likely precipitation type in the Osceola/Clare County region, where QPF is greatest. When referring to greatest QPF, we are only talking around one or two hundredths of an inch, so that should limit impacts for Tuesday morning travel.

- Warm Tuesday, low chances for precipitation Tuesday night

Temperatures moderate briefly Tuesday with highs most likely in the upper 30s. Latest NBM guidance indicates about a 50 percent chance of reaching a high of 40 at Jackson; for Grand Rapids, the probability is more around 30-40 percent.

As noted before, there is at least some probability for accumulating precipitation in the Tuesday night/early Wednesday timeframe due to lift provided by an arctic front combined with marginally moistened air (due to lake aggregate effects). Any moisture will be quite shallow, possibly entirely below the DGZ. Thus, lake effect freezing drizzle could accompany any flurries or light snow that occurs. The most likely place for any of this to occur would be north of I-96.

We should have a better idea of what to expect later today as more short range guidance becomes available to diagnose the possibilities. However, it should be noted that in situations like these with such shallow lake-sourced moisture, it's a pretty big ask for even the high resolution convection allowing models to get the details right. Sometimes, bulk diagnostics like boundary layer convergence/omega/RH tell the story a lot better.

The odds favor Thursday and Friday being dry and uneventful.

- Accumulating snow possible this weekend

The 09/00Z cluster analysis shows a stronger signal for unphased northern and southern streams starting to affect the area beginning late Friday. The cluster with greatest membership among the medium range ensembles (close to 40 percent of the members) shows a southern stream shortwave trough heading towards the mid Mississippi Valley this weekend, which would induce a surface low tracking towards the OH Valley. This is a favorable set up for accumulating synoptic snow over much of Lower MI. This appears most likely occur around Sunday morning.

Other and somewhat lower probability cluster solutions indicate a surface low track more over southern Lower MI with greatest accumulations displaced farther north and more of a mixed bag of precipitation types across southern Lower MI.

Clearly we are too far out to nail down specifics. The main point is that accumulating snowfall is possible over the weekend and this will be the most important thing to watch moving forward.

AVIATION /12Z TAFS THROUGH 12Z TUESDAY/

Issued at 621 AM EST Mon Feb 9 2026

High confidence for VFR conditions through the period. A layer of stratocumulus with bases around 6000 feet AGL will result in BKN/OVC ceilings at all but the easternmost terminals (LAN and JXN). These ceilings are not expected to drop into MVFR categories.

The only other change of note was to introduce LLWS at all terminals after 06Z tonight. This is when we expect to see a well developed low level jet (LLJ) in an environment of strong warm advection. This has a stabilizing influence on the nocturnal boundary layer, which allows surface winds to remain decoupled and thus significantly lighter than winds at 2000 ft AGL, which is the approximate height at which the core of strongest winds with the LLJ will be.

GRR WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

MI...None. MARINE...None.