BLOG: Cold, Cold, Cold
Going into this season many didn't expect such a cold and active pattern to set up across the Northeast one year after this same region got hammered the previous season. Well, we're no one-hit wonder and the hits keep coming. This weekend will feature nuisance snow, however, as a weak clipper dies out across the Appalachians with a period of light snow expected this afternoon east of the mountains. Accumulations will be light with perhaps an inch in some areas to the north and west, but many others (including in the city) will be hard pressed to do much better than a fresh coating. I don't think many will be complaining about that.
Sunday looks cold, but seasonably so with clouds breaking for sunshine around midmorning, and with a light wind it won't actually be that bad outside. We're going to carry continuity for now, but we may be a touch too warm with ten inches of cooling on the ground currently. The proverbial fun and games will once again be had for the middle of the week as deep trough digs into the Rockies on Tuesday with the polar vortex displaced across northern Quebec.
This high will deposit very cold air over the Northeast once again while a surface low takes shape in the Southern Plains. As things stand currently, this low will gain strength as it progresses east-northeast as a shortwave trough ejects out of the Southwest and arrives in the Ohio Valley come Wednesday. Additionally, a secondary low will begin to develop along the coast as high pressure slides offshore. So with this in mind, snow will begin sometime late Tuesday afternoon or Tuesday night and persist into early Wednesday with sleet and freezing rain becoming the predominant precip-type that morning or early in the afternoon. A changeover to plain rain is certainly possible during the day, and some model guidance suggests we make a run at 40 degrees before sunset. Given the pattern this would not be surprising, so I'd certainly mention that we may end up with more rain and less snow or even ice than currently advertised. Beyond the midweek mayhem, let's recycle the theme of cold, because it just doesn't want to warm up.
Have a great day!
