Wintry "Treat" for the South; Will Spread into Mid-Atlantic Later Today...

Above is a rare site - accumulating snow near the Mississippi/Alabama border in Starkville, MS (by Greg Nordstrom via twitter).  The area has picked up 1-2 inches of snow so far, and it's still coming down as you can see on the radar mosaic image below:

The reports in blue and purple on the radar map indicate snow depth at those specific locations, which as you can see are as high as 3 inches just South of Jackson and near Yazoo City, MS.  

Snow is beginning to mix in with the rain in west-central and northwest Alabama as well, and precipitation will change entirely to snow across this region during the morning hours.

The above represents the southern end of a swath of wintry precipitation that extends (or will later today) all the way up into the DC Metro and Delmarva Peninsula region.  A variety of winter weather advisories and warnings are in effect along and ahead of the storm system for today:

There is a high probability (greater than 60 percent) of 6 or more inches of snow from the mountains of eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina into central and western Virginia through tonight:

Note the low probabilities (brown and yellow - 5 to 10 percent) for 6 inches or more of snow extend back as far southwest as the region along the Alabama/Mississippi border that we were talking about earlier.  Widespread amounts of 2-4 inches are likely in this region, with up to 6 inches not out of the question.

As you can imagine, travel and commerce have been brought to a near standstill across the South where the snow is more unusual.  Conditions will become hazardous further to the Northeast throughout the day as the precipitation changes over to a mixture and then snow.  Please use caution if you must travel across the Winter Weather Advisory or Warning areas.  If you have air travel planned into or out of Atlanta, the Mid-Atlantic or the Baltimore/Washington area later today, I'd strongly advise checking ahead for delays and/or cancellations.

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