WEATHER

Winter storm watch issued with 4-8 inches of snow expected Friday and Saturday in southeastern Wisconsin

Meg Jones

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

A storm moving across the middle section of the United States is expected to push snow into southeastern Wisconsin Friday and Saturday, dropping 4 to 8 inches and prompting the National Weather Service to issue a winter storm watch.

The National Weather Service says southeastern Wisconsin could get hit with 4-8 inches of snow late Friday into Saturday.

The watch is from 6 p.m. Friday to noon Saturday.

After the snow blows through, temperatures are forecast to plunge into single digits Sunday and Monday.

The track of the storm is still forming and it's a bit early to know exactly when snow will arrive and how much will fall. But the National Weather Service is forecasting the snow to begin in the Milwaukee area Friday evening and linger into Saturday morning.

"We're still trying to narrow down the track of this storm, and that would affect how much snow we will get," Sarah Marquardt, a National Weather Service meteorologist based in Sullivan, said Wednesday afternoon. "It looks like southeastern Wisconsin will have the best shot."

BACK PAGES:14-foot drifts, stacks of cars and 'anarchy': The January in Milwaukee when it never stopped snowing

There also could be some lake effect snow Saturday as winds shift out of the northeast, blowing cold air across Lake Michigan.

Normally for major winter storms to sock Wisconsin, intense low-pressure systems must move across northeast Illinois and Indiana, but since the one hitting on Friday will spread from Arkansas and Tennessee to the Mid-Atlantic states, it's likely only southern Wisconsin will get snow, according to the weather service.

The sun rises over Lake Michigan and frozen tree branches. Ice formations covered branches along the Lake Michigan shoreline north of Bradford Beach as extreme cold have caused water to wash over trees branches and the rocky shore which freezes, creating sculpture like formations.

Aside from Milwaukee's forecast of 4 to 8 inches, the weather service is predicting Kenosha could get 5 to 9 inches, Waukesha could get 3 to 6 inches, Madison could get 1 to 4 inches and areas north of Madison, from Wisconsin Dells to Fond du Lac, could get anywhere from a trace to 2 to 3 inches.

"That's kind of a big range right now. It depends on where the track of the storm goes," Marquardt said.

Winds could gust up to 25 mph on Saturday.

Then the deep freeze is expected to settle in. Behind the storm system is a much colder air mass that will move into the upper Midwest, settling in over Wisconsin Sunday and into early next week.

Highs on Sunday in the Milwaukee area are expected to be 14 degrees with lows around 3. Saturday's low temperature is forecast around 8 degrees. Other areas could get low temperatures of zero to single digits.