Southeast Lower Michigan is under a Winter Storm Watch. Here are some quick points about the coming snow.

The Winter Storm Watch is for a period from midnight tonight to late Wednesday evening. While we will have spotty light snow and rain today, the main period of steady snow will start late tonight and continue Wednesday and Wednesday evening.

Winter storm watch in effect for blue shaded areas. Huron, Sanilac and St. Clair Counties also are in the winter storm watch.

The back, northwest edge of the Winter Storm Watch shows the northward extent of over 4 inches of snow. The Winter Storm Watch includes Battle Creek, Kalamazoo, Lansing and Saginaw on the northwest edge. All of southeast Lower Michigan, including Detroit, Ann Arbor, Jackson and Flint, are solidly in the heart of the Winter Storm Watch.

Grand Rapids, Midland and Bay City were in the Winter Storm Watch area, but have been pulled out of the watch area.

This shows the fine-tuning of the snow area that all of the data is showing. A sharp cutoff on heavy snow will occur in the northern fringe area of the Winter Storm Watch.

Here’s one of the models with its total snow forecast. All of the model data we look at is very similar, varying only by an inch here and there.

Total snowfall forecast by the end of the snow late Wednesday night.

The snow should virtually end across southern Lower Michigan by 11 p.m. Wednesday. There may be some occasional spurts of snow for a few hours after, but the accumulating snow should be over.

You’ll notice two things with this snow forecast. Southeast Lower is in the heart of a 5 to 8 inch snow. Detroit, Ann Arbor, Jackson and Monroe are in the middle of the heavy snow area. The second important point is the sharp decline in snow totals on the northwest edge of the storm. Snow totals will go from solid snow to one inch from Flint to the Saginaw area. You’ll also see that big tapering of snow amounts from Kalamazoo to Grand Rapids. Grand Rapids should get only light snow out of this weather system.

Wind will get gusty Wednesday afternoon and Wednesday evening. With colder temperatures, the last few inches of snow in southeast Lower will blow and drift Wednesday night and Thursday morning.

Temperatures will also get much colder by Thursday morning, meaning salt won’t work as well on roadways.