BLOG: Snow Ahead?

There's good news and bad news this morning as we take a look at the upcoming forecast period-- the good news is that the precipitation today will be of little impact with plain rain expected in most locations and near normal temperatures in the short-term. The bad news is that two more weather features could lead to snow later in the period -- and the weather event Thursday could potentially be significant (low confidence, however).
 
An upper-level low responsible for the snow yesterday in Dallas will continue its' journey to the northeast today, cutting through the Ohio Valley and just to our north tonight. Warm advection ahead of this system is fairly significant, and a plume of moisture will be carried northward accordingly with the relatively warmer air. A weak surface low should develop today and it is also expected to track to our north, putting us in the warm sector with any freezing rain in our northern and western communities changing to plain rain early on this morning. As of 5 am BWI was 33/32 with drizzle, so we feel pretty confident that icing will not be a concern across the viewing area.
The rain will taper off late this afternoon or early this evening as a cold front pushes through and drier air filters in, and this will set the stage for a fairly nice Sunday in comparison to pretty much the entire month of January. In fact, we may be a few degrees too cool with temperatures given ample sunshine and a northwesterly surface flow, but sometimes these inversions are hard to mix out completely, so we'll let continuity ride.
 
Monday will feature increasing clouds ahead of the next (weak) storm system slated to bring a little rain and snow to the region as early as that afternoon, but most of the moisture will hold off until Monday night when a southern stream shortwave trough slides through the Mid-Atlantic with the northern stream feature trailing across the Ohio Valley Tuesday.