Area meteorologists are confident North Alabama will be covered in a blanket of snow Tuesday. They just don’t know exactly how much.

Chris Stumps, meteorologist with the National Weather Service of Huntsville, said an arctic front will bring freezing temperatures and snow beginning early Tuesday morning.

“It could be anywhere from maybe 3 in the morning Tuesday, which would be the initial start (of snow) to after 6 in the morning,” Stumps said. “There is a pretty big window Tuesday, plus three to six hours where we could see a transition to snow.”

The current forecasted high Tuesday is 28 degrees with a low forecasted at 11 degrees. The temperature won’t be much higher Wednesday, with a forecasted high of 34 degrees and a low of 16.

Stumps said that means the snow could stick around for a while.

“We’ve got a good shot of cold air coming in, and we’re looking at temps that following night in the teens,” Stumps said. “The highs on Wednesday may creep above freezing, so we could see some of it melt by Wednesday, if not maybe Thursday at that point.”

As to how much snow will need to melt, Stumps said meteorologists aren’t sure of that yet. Right now, they are forecasting half an inch to an inch, but Stumps said their confidence in that number is low.

“We’re confident we’ll see snow, the big question is the amount,” he said. “Right now, a lot of the forecast models we look at show varying solutions on timing where the heaviest snow might occur. If those line up a little better, we can have more confidence in making a prediction. We hope to see those narrow over the weekend, so hopefully Sunday or Monday we can be more confident in the amount of snowfall we’re expecting to get, and we’ll have a better idea of what we’ll see Tuesday morning.”

Both Limestone County Schools Superintendent Dr. Tom Sisk and Athens City Schools Superintendent Dr. Trey Holladay said they are monitoring the situation and will make a decision on whether or not to cancel or delay school as soon as possible.

“If we expect anything that’s going to cause problems for parents and kids, we try to make the call early enough so everybody has time to make a plan,” Holladay said. “We will try to make that call before school is out Monday, but if something changes, we’ll try to make it before the 10:00 news.”

Sisk said the county’s standard practice is to communicate any closings or delays by 5 p.m. the previous day so it would go on the evening news. If a decision is not made until later, they try to make it by 9 p.m. to get it on the 10 p.m. news. If there is late change to the weather, Sisk said the latest a decision would be made is by 6 a.m.

In addition to getting the reporting on the news, the systems send out text message or phone calls blasts, as well as putting the information on their respective Facebook pages.

“What we don’t want to do is put any teachers, students or parents at risk in unsafe driving conditions,” Holladay said. “If we suspect we’ll have type of problems with that, we’re going to cancel. If not, we’ll be in school.”