Issued Friday at 9:00 p.m., January 23, 2026

Winter Storm Conditions Will Overspread the Plateau on Saturday. Travel Could Become Impossible at Times.

Keep in mind that you can follow this site or download the free Meteorologist Mark app to get updates as I issue them. Thank you so much!

Winter Storm Warning

I appreciate you all for trusting me with your forecast. When I made my first forecast for this, I started at 6-8 inches of snow. How nice that would have been! ha Then, as the track of the low started looking like it would come closer, I had to start reducing the snow accumulations and increasing the ice accumulations. Now, we’re looking at 2-4 inches of snow (for the whole event) and 1/4-1/2 inch of ice. It’s been a wild few days! The good news is that there was enough information a week ago to give you all a heads up that an impactful winter storm could impact our weekend. And now here we are!

At this hour, the leading edge of the winter storm is approaching the Mississippi River. It will continue to develop eastward through the night. Meanwhile, an arctic front moved through our area this evening, which will lead a very cold night here on the plateau.

The only change I’ve made to this is to keep snow in the area until at least 3:00 pm. After that time, we will start to see lots of mixing in of various forms of wintry precip. Travel is likely to become extremely hazardous, if not impossible, at times tomorrow evening and night.

Notice that temps start to rise after midnight. We should all be above freezing by 6:00 a.m. Sunday. That will give us lots of relief from the ice.

The threat map is unchanged from the last update. The danerously cold temps come Sunday night.

This remains unchanged and will likely remain unchanged.

This remains unchanged and will likely remain unchanged. This includes the inch or so some of us may get at the onset, and the inch or so that we could recieve at the end (through Sunday night).

It stays cold all week.

Some More Meteorology!

The thickness of the warm air aloft determines precip type. This is the “warm nose” that you’ve heard mentioned.

And sometimes that warm nose gets thick enough that the plateau is actually up in the warmer air. This is why you may see temps be forecast to be warmer here than lower elevations to our east and west.

Much of the plateau is relatively flat or with rolling hills. However, some of you have some deep valleys (ie hollers). Those of you around Wilder, Double Top, Crab Orchard have some of those deeper valleys. Cold air can get trapped in those valleys and prolong freezing rain. That could cause some of those areas to approach the 3/4″ of ice. Just something to keep in mind.

I’ll bring you updates throughout the weeknd and do my best to keep you informed and safe.

You all stay warm and thank you for trusting me with your Cumberland Plateau weather!

Thank You, Sponsors!

Other important weather information will be shared when needed. This includes additional severe weather information, model data, drought info, hurricane info, and more. Some of these can be found as tabs to this page at any time.

Disclaimer: This website/app should never be considered your primary source of severe weather warnings.