SARANAC LAKE — Last week, Punxsutawney Phil predicted six more weeks of winter. So far, the groundhog’s prediction is coming to fruition.

Snow showers are expected this afternoon — some of which could result in a brief but strong burst of snow and wind, dropping visibilities and creating potentially tricky travel conditions, according to the National Weather Service’s Burlington, Vermont, office, which serves the Tri-Lakes region.

NWS Burlington Meteorologist Jessica Storm said the exact timing of the heaviest snows was still up in the air as of press time Monday. She noted that it would likely occur in the window between 1 and 5 p.m., adding that the heavy snow itself would only last for about 15 to 20 minutes, but could reduce visibility with winds gusting up to 35 mph as the front moves through.

Behind the cold front, lows of around zero are expected tonight, with relatively quiet weather forecast for Wednesday.

The calm is not expected to last long. A pair of storms are forecasted to impact the Tri-Lakes area over the coming days. The first of which is slated to begin early Thursday morning and last through midday. A second — and potentially stronger — storm is likely to impact the region over the weekend. Colder air is expected to return to the region in its wake to kick off next week.

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Tricky Track

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Thursday morning’s storm presents a complicated forecast, as its impacts are influenced by not one but potentially two areas of low pressure.

“There’s kind of a variety of factors that could adjust the forecast, but right now it’s looking like that main low will come through the St. Lawrence Valley and then the secondary low off the coast,” Storm said. “It’s just that secondary low that makes it a little bit more complicated and a little less certain.”

The tracks of the low-pressure systems play a tug-of-war with each other, of sorts. This dictates not only where the heaviest precipitation will fall, but also what type it is. A stronger secondary low would help bring heavier precipitation and colder air over the Tri-Lakes area from a track that would otherwise bring the bulk of the action to our west.

Conversely, a weak secondary low with minimal influence on the low pressure moving through the St. Lawrence Valley would keep the bulk of the precipitation west of the Tri-Lakes. This would result in northern Ontario seeing the most snowfall and even invite the possibility of a brief changeover to sleet and freezing rain locally, as above-freezing air would advance further northward. However, by the time temperatures warmed above freezing, the bulk of the precipitation would have moved out of the region, minimizing concerns of ice accretion.

“There’s one pretty steady low that is expected to travel up through the St. Lawrence Valley — kind of assisting with that area getting the most snowfall — and then a secondary low starts to develop along the coast,” Storm said. “It depends on how those lows interact with each other to sway the storm track one way or another or influence how deep and powerful the low pressure near the St. Lawrence gets.”

Forecast models throughout Monday appeared to trend toward the warmer of those scenarios, with the secondary low-pressure system failing to exert much influence. Even under that setup, the Tri-Lakes region could still receive some snow. Storm said as of Monday afternoon, NWS Burlington believed 4 to 7 inches of snow is likely for the Tri-Lakes area on Thursday, with higher amounts to the north and west, and lower amounts to the south and east.

In either scenario, the storm looks to be a quick-mover, clearing out the region by midday Thursday, with scattered light snow showers in its wake, as colder air moves back in behind the storm.

Forecast models suggest another system will impact the region this weekend, although Storm said it’s too soon to predict snowfall amounts or say for certain that the precipitation type will fall exclusively as snow.

“There’s still a good amount of uncertainty with that one being a bit further out, but there’s going to be a low pressure approaching toward Sunday afternoon,” she said. “Some models are bringing it through a bit quicker, some are a bit slower, but it does look increasingly certain that we’ll get some sort of precipitation.”