Published: January 09, 2007 12:16 pm      

WAVE 3's Belski predicts colder, wetter air within weeks

Look outside. Do you see the snow that was suppose to fall today?

If so, it could be a preview of the last couple months of winter

Despite the region’s relatively mild season, one area meteorologist says at least 20 inches of snow could fall on Louisville and Southern Indiana between now and late March or early April.

During an appearance Friday on WHAS radio’s “The Joe Elliott Show,” WAVE 3 News meteorologist John Belski said there is still plenty of time for the region to take a major snow hit or perhaps several smaller ones.

“We’re going to have at least a couple of shots of pretty decent snow,” Belski said during an interview Monday.

Belski likened this winter to 1998, when mild temperatures eventually gave way to a 60-hour period during which 22 inches of snow fell on the region.

“In my book, it’s over a 50 percent chance” that it will snow 20 inches between now and spring, Belski said.

Such snowfall totals would exceed the area’s averages by seven inches for the period of January through April, according to National Weather Service data.

National Weather Service projections disagree with Belski’s thinking.

“The only thing I can tell you right now is that for January, February and March, we’re at below normal on precipitation probably,” said Marilyn Scholz, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Louisville office. “It’s looking like we would be above normal on the temperatures.”

Belski admits that long-term weather predictions for the Ohio Valley are difficult, due to the area’s geography and its almost central location between weather systems developing in Canada and the Gulf of Mexico. But he stands by his predication that cold, wet air is coming.

“At the end of January, beginning of February, we could get hit several times,” he said.

“I hope he’s wrong,” said Bob Goforth, Clark County assistant highway director. “But we’ve got everything ready.”

“Don’t tell me that,” said Ron Quakenbush, who heads Floyd County’s highway department, of Belski’s snow prediction.

“We’re ready,” said Ken Alexander, Sellersburg’s public works director. “If it happens, we’ll dig it out. We hope John’s wrong, though.”

During the past few years, most local street and highway departments have begun treating roads with a brine mixture before snowfalls, to make plowing easier. Clark County’s highway department actually uses a mixture made from the extract of sugar beets, but will likely change to the less expensive brine once it runs out of what it has.

“We’ve had it for about three years,” Goforth said. “It seems to do the job pretty good.”

Quakenbush said pretreating roads helps with snow removal — but less so with plowing ice — because it helps keep the pavement warmer, making it easier for plows to push the snow forward.

Belski said a rapid change to colder, wetter weather could prove difficult for some people.

“We’re going to have a harder time adjusting, I think, because our bodies have gotten used to this mild weather,” he said.