If you like snow and you live in the Twin Lakes Area, stick around this weekend as the National Weather Service is predicting we'll likely see several inches of snow fall.

The storm is coming from the west coast and will move across the west before slamming into Arkansas on Friday.

"We have a very dynamic weather system coming on shore over southern California as we speak," said Joe Goudsward, senior forecaster for the Little Rock office of the National Weather Service said Wednesday morning.  "It looks like northern Arkansas is kind of going to be under the gun for the winter weather this time around."

As the storm tracks eastward, a low pressure system is expected to develop somewhere over Texas, tapping into moisture before the storm moves into Arkansas, where it will meet cold air on the surface due to high pressure in the north, according to Goudsward.

"Our best guess now is that on Friday, it's going to start off with a little bit of everything. First a very minimal chance of snow, then sleet, then transitioning over to just a cold rain during the day Friday." the forecaster said. "Friday night is when that cold air starts to come in and the storm really starts to get cranked up."

Once that happens, Goudsward says whatever form of precipitation there is at the time, it will transition into snow.

"That's going occur Friday night and into Saturday with snow pretty much all day Saturday, into Saturday night before beginning to taper off early in the day on Sunday," said Goudsward.

However, the storm is system is complex and the models are going to change as the storm moves east and forecasters gain data from sources such as weather balloons. Goudsward says the daytime precipitation on Friday could be snow if the current temperature predictions are off by just a couple of degrees.

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"The question isn't whether we'll see snow this weekend, the question is how much snow we'll see this weekend," Goudsward predicted. "We're very confident we'll see snow, right now we're thinking 4-6 inches, maybe locally up to 8 inches."

Two factors loom largest when trying to predict how much snow might fall over the course of the storm. The first is how quickly the storm tracks through the gulf region. The slower the storm moves through the gulf, the more moisture it will draw that can later fall as snow.

The other big factor is the cold high pressure system to the northeast. As that high pressure system moves south and meets moisture, where the two collide will determine how much snow the Twin Lakes Area will see, according to Goudsward.

Forecast not set in stone

While the National Weather Service says it is likely the Twin Lakes Area will see several inches of snow from this storm, the forecast is not set in stone.

"There is still a great amount of uncertainty, our computer models are not zeroing in on any one solution for what's going to happen," Goudsward said. "They're kind of still all over the board with this which is why we're having trouble pinning down the amounts."

As the week moves forward, the forecast will become better as scientists gather more data on the storm. By Friday morning, Goudsward said the NWS forecast for the storm should be more detailed and less uncertain.

"The closer we get to the actual event, the better the forecast will be," said Goudsward.

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