Hundreds of schools, churches close on Wednesday as winter storm approaches

News that impacts you and your community. 13 on your side late night starts now. Good evening, I'm Juliet Dregas. Let's get right to the winter weather alert and the warnings that go into effect tomorrow morning. Right now there are more than 200 closings many area schools already canceling classes and many churches will not be holding their Ash Wednesday services. We have team coverage tonight ahead of the storm. Chief meteorologist George Lessons is tracking it as it moves closer to West Michigan.

Andrea Flores looks at the Russian grocery stores and how to prevent your food from spoiling if the power goes out and like a show has some tips on how to protect your home in an ice storm. George and ice storm warning is rare here in West Michigan. Oh yeah, last time it was issued for the West Michigan area was way back in 2013, so it is very rare. We do occasionally get some icing, but this is the first ice storm warning, and that is for Allagan and Berry County Southward. As you mentioned, Juliet goes into effect at 10 o'clock tomorrow morning through 4 o'clock on Thursday morning. Further to the North Winter Storm warnings more for sleet, freezing rain and snow farther to the North again from 10 AM to 4 AM here in Kent County to the North. It is extended until 1 PM on Thursday.

It's going to be a little bit later for the snow to move out there on Thursday afternoon part of a large system stretching from the Northeast US all the way almost to the Northwest US. The cold front is expected to move into the Southwest in the coming months, and there will be more weathered warnings off to our West and ice storm warnings into Southern Wisconsin. What's up falling over in the Lakeshore areas around Spring Lake, a little bit of light snow out ahead of the main event. There's a lot of Gulf moisture coming up from the South and that's just going to override the cold air that was introduced earlier today when that cold front went through. That's why it was breezy this morning, and there were a few flakes of snow. All of that cold warm moist air overriding the cold air leading to the cold front moving everywhere north of this red line and that line is not going to move very much over the next 24 hours right now. 26 up in Big Rapids 28 Fremont.

There's a little bit of light snow in Muskegon were at 27. We will stay below freezing as I mentioned all day long and that's going to lead to some travel issues. I'll have more in the forecast on how much you might get a little bit cooler around the rest of the day, but thank you so much for watching. This is not the end of my video today. I'm trying to. I hope you loved my video. It's really awesome! I think we know how sick it will be and some of the people andigs when we're going down.

I'm here to guide you guys.

severe-weather, local , watch-utility, weather