Snow was expected to start falling after midnight today and increase in intensity throughout the morning. Temperatures today are expected to reach 28 degrees with a low of 9, according to the NWS.
Total snow accumulation of 5 to 8 inches is expected across Butler and Warren counties by Monday morning.
“It’s actually going to be multiple waves of precipitation where sometimes it’s not going to be quite as heavy,” Novak said. It “looks like the afternoon into the evening hours (today) will be the highest snowfall accumulation. We will have snow and sleet accumulation at other times as well.”
Most ice on the roadways was expected overnight this Sunday morning.
The snowfall is expected to taper off by Monday morning, but leave behind chilly temperatures that drop to 9 or 12 degrees early Monday, Novak said. That’s along with wind gusts up to 30 mph, she said.
Temperatures Monday night are forecast to drop to near zero, she said.
Before today, the Cincinnati area had already seen up to 43.6 inches of snow this winter, making this season the fifth highest snowfall since the National Weather Service started keeping records in 1893.
The predicted 5 to 8 inches of snow across the region today has the potential to move this season above the record-setting 53.9 inches measured in 1978.
The historically high snowfall this season means Ohio Department of Transportation may end up using nearly twice as much road salt than typically required for an average winter, a spokesman said.
The department uses 630,000 tons of salt on average a year and had nearly that much on hand in October, before what has been an unusually cold, snowy winter. The state has called in contracts with salt companies for an additional 510,000 tons and received permission from a legislative panel to buy 45,000 tons more, ODOT spokesman Steve Faulkner said. Not all of that salt has been received.
Salt demand is outpacing supply, and some shipments have been delayed. That has limited the state’s ability to help local governments that are short on salt or can’t afford to buy more, though the department has been helping those communities in dire need on a case-by-case basis, Faulkner said.
“We are not in a position to be able to help a community for the rest of the winter, but if it’s a matter of getting them through a storm that’s coming up, we can try to do that,” he said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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