With lake effect snow, the amounts can vary over a short distance. Here’s a close look at the details of the snow forecast for southeast Lower Michigan.

Starting today, Wednesday, 2 p.m., the factors that lead to heavy lake snow will be gradually identified. The factors will combine more strongly this evening to produce heavier lake-effect snow late this evening and into Thursday.

The lake effect will become increasingly dissipated Thursday evening and end Friday morning.

Remember: Even in a significant lake effect situation, lake effect snow over Southeast Michigan is always patchy.

Here’s all the additional snowfall expected through the end of snow Friday.

For those of us in southeastern and eastern Michigan, we need to watch for a long, fairly narrow band of lake effect snow moving into our part of the state. Because of the vast expanse of southern Lake Michigan, we can actually get a significant amount of snow cover. The band of snow will likely run along I-94, I-69 and I-96. With this wind flow, an I-96 lake effect band appears to be most consistent.

The overall snow forecast above shows the expected 2 to 4 inch band of snow from Howell to Brighton to Novi and Farmington Hills. The Ann Arbor area is expected to see a few inches of snow north of the city and just an inch of snow south of the city. One to two inches of snow is expected across Oakland County. There will be one inch patchy areas in downtown Detroit.

A little further north, Flint, Saginaw and Bay City are looking at just an inch or two of snow. Huron County in northern Thumb could see up to four inches of snow.

The north side of the Saginaw Bay area is pollinated only.

So it’s not exactly a snowstorm over our part of the state, but the moderate bursts of snow hovering over some major highways could lead to accidents.

If you drive on Thursdays, Thursday nights and Friday mornings, you must be prepared for rapidly changing road conditions. You could go from a dry stretch of road to a snowy stretch in just a minute.

If you don’t feel like driving in the winter, wait until Saturday afternoon when temperatures should rise above freezing.

Stay up to date on how the weather situation develops here.