The National Weather Service has upped its projected ice totals for Thursday morning in the map it released earlier this afternoon (seen above in the featured photo). A little more than 1/3 of MoCo is now projected to get .1-.25” of ice with the other 2/3 or so at .01-.1”
In the “FutureCast” seen below, courtesy of Fox 5’s Mike Thomas, the freezing rain enters our area around 1am and continues to fall until turning to rain at approximately 8/8:30am in parts of the county and for almost all of the county by 9am. This is one of those situations where areas like Bethesda and Silver Spring see mostly wet roads, while areas further north like Gaithersburg, Germantown, Clarksburg, and Damascus see more significant issues involving ice.
Thursday is all about the cold air at the surface, how long does it stick around? Cold wedges are notorious for breaking later than expected, so watching carefully. The big concern is ice (pink = freezing rain) not snow. Delays, cancellations likely northwest of town. pic.twitter.com/ziRhsjhNxZ
— Mike Thomas (@MikeTFox5) December 13, 2022
First Pencil Prediction (to be finalized on Wednesday night): 2.5 Pencils
While I don’t expect major issues due to the freezing rain, the timing of when it falls is likely to be disruptive for the morning commute. With things expected to switch over entirely to rain by 8:30am or so, a two hour delay seems like a good bet at the moment. If things change tomorrow and it looks like the cold air won’t hang around, there’s still a chance for a full day of school, but if it hangs around a little longer then a closure isn’t off the table either. We’ll continue to monitor and have our final pencil prediction for you by Wednesday night.
'
