Bracing for impact: SE Wisconsin issues winter storm warning, ice storm warning

It is 12 20 here on this Wednesday. And of course we are tracking this winter storm moving through. We've been talking about the snow, the sleet, the freezing rain, but also the winds playing a big factor. This will also deal or lead to reduced visibility as we head into this afternoon, but also even right now because of the sleet, it is hurting if you have to walk outside because sleet is like little pellets of ice and when you have wind gusts near about 30 to 35 to even 40 miles per hour, it is not comfortable to be outside. If you don't have to be outside, do not go outside. You can see strongest winds right along the lakefront. As we take a look here at storm for Max radar, a lot of colors on radar.

Again, blue that is the snow, the purple that is sleet and then the pink color that is freezing rain. So in freezing rain, it falls as rain. So if you're looking out, you're wondering you think, hey, it's just raining while freezing rain falls as rain and when it touches a surface that is at or below freezing, which many spots are here, it turns to ice. So we are seeing that mailing through our southern parts of our area. Also looking at quite a bit of sleet in this region. This is the area that has the most snow, where we are expecting higher accumulations of ice. Though farther to the north, we are on the snowier side of the system, and we are expecting also higher totals of snow here through southeast or Wisconsin, but mainly through some of our northern counties.

The storm system itself is pretty big. We do have some thunderstorms. I did get asked some questions earlier. If we would have a chance for storms, most likely not, I do expect them to mainly stay to our South just because of the track of the storm system as it moves through our area. But let's take a look at what you can expect as we continue throughout the remainder of this afternoon. I do still expect snow, mainly to the north. Unfortunately, our models don't really show areas that will see a difference between sleet and snow.

It groups it all together, but you can tell we are mainly going to keep it in the sleet or freezing rain kind of area down here farther to the south. They should say sleet and freezing rain grouped together in this model blue, though, definitely for the snow. This is a look at about two o'clock as we get close to four o'clock. Not much different as you get closer to six o'clock. Still no major changes. And even through about eight o'clock, this will be the time that we have the highest snowfall amounts. Also ice accumulation due to the freezing rain and then also kind of slushy conditions because of the sleet.

It won't be until after about 10 o'clock tonight that we start to get some breaks in this area and still a few more showers lingering, but nothing like what we were looking at through this afternoon and this evening. So breaking things down again, I do expect us all to see a mix of snow, sleet and freezing rain. Pretty much we've all seen it so far, but this is where we're looking at accumulation for the most part. Six to 12 inches of snow north of a line stretching pretty much from Beaver Dam to Port Washington south of that line. And as you work away mainly just south of the city of Milwaukee, you're looking at a mixture of snow and sleet. So it's going to be very slushy in this area as we're looking at three to six inches of that snow sleet mixture. Then just to the south, about a quarter to a half an inch of ice because this is the area that we're mainly expecting freezing rain mixed with some sleet here.

And unfortunately that could definitely lead to downed trees, downed power lines as well. Something to watch as the storm continues to move on through. As we get into tomorrow, excuse me, still a few more showers across the area then everything wraps up by the timing into the early parts of the afternoon. We are back to some sunshine on Friday, but it is going to be bitterly cold. Upper 30s return for the weekend, just a slight chance for some snow early Saturday. We'll be right back.

brian gotter, brian niznansky, kristin kirchhaine, marisa woloszyn, milwaukee forecast, milwaukee weather, storm team 4, weather, weather forecast, wisconsin weather, wiwx