Winter wonderland? It’s not looking like it

Live on the western side of the region?

Make sure all your plans are in order and you have everything you need. It could, emphasis on could, get a little nasty.

Live along the coast, Virginia Beach and northeaster North Carolina?

As of the Wakefield office of the National Weather Service Thursday morning update, our area could get a little snowy and rainy on Saturday night before turning to just cold rain on Sunday.

In the Wakefield 11 a.m. webinar, the news continued to get better for the coast – with the trouble-making low pressure system still budging its way to the north-northwest.

That’s all great news for our region, especially after early-week predictions of massive snow and freezing ice.

Yes, that forecast is still holding on for the northeast coast above us, where brutal conditions could cause all sorts of problems.

For us, at least as of midday Thursday, things are looking a lot better.

But that doesn’t mean we’re out of the woods. A slight storm wiggle north or south could put us in all rain or back in major storm mode.

The good news for us is that nearly every computer model run has started to link up and predict the same scenario – another bullet dodged.

My advice, however, is to not breathe a sign of relief. Winter nor’easters with all the nasty elements in place have a way of disappointing to those thinking everything’s just fine.

Despite the northwest form movement, we could still see sleet, maybe some snow and even some freezing rain Saturday night. That spells power outages and serious travel issues.

Get everything you might need for several days and just stay put.

As it stands right now, Sunday along the coast should be all rain and not a lot of it – just enough to wash way all that other stuff.

However, no matter what happens, the first three days of next week are supposed to be insanely cold by our standards. So until the sun beams and breezes blow to dry things out, roads could be treacherous  – at least until Monday afternoon.

Welcome to the world of global warming – it’s one of the coldest things I’ve ever seen.