BLOG: Welcome To Winter!
Even though it has felt like winter this entire month, the season officially begins today with the Winter Solstice. This is also the day with the least amount of sunlight. From here through the summer solstice, we add anywhere from 1-3 minutes of sunlight to each day. Now, on to tracking some possible winter weather...
The storm that brought snow to Minnesota for Monday Night Football was headed this way. It was weakening already as it moved this way, and we did not expect much, but it really fizzled out as it hit western Maryland. All we are going to get from this is some clouds this afternoon through tomorrow. With more sunshine out today, we have actually warmed up a little - all the way to the low 40s. While this is still below average, it's the warmest day around here in some time. We will only top out in the upper 30s tomorrow and then mid 30s on Thursday as a new round of cold air moves this way. That will set the stage for the storm moving eastward this weekend.
OK, I wrapped that up quickly so that we can move on to what most people are really talking about...the possibility of a white Christmas.
There is not much change to yesterday's thinking...just that the potential storm will take longer to get here. The storm under question is still sitting out over the Pacific. It will move onshore tomorrow, then head out through the Rockies on Thursday before cutting through the middle of the country quickly on Friday and heading toward the East Coast for the weekend. Since it's still 4 days out, the details are still not clear. But whatever moves this way will not get here until Christmas Day (maybe not even until later in the afternoon) and continue through Sunday. And it does look like we will probably get something out of it, but how much is still to be determined.
The major factor that we are watching today is: where do the pieces of this storm come together. This will help us determine whether the worst of this storm hits farther south, heads out to sea, or does cut up the East Coast. When we can get a better understanding of that, then we can start to really break down the more specific details like: the amount of moisture with this storm for Maryland and the forecast temperatures when the moisture does arrive (the colder the air, the higher the snow to rain ratios). We will start to get a better idea of these things when the storm makes its way onshore in the Pacific tomorrow. As of now, we think that there will probably be something white coming out of the sky Christmas...whether it's just flurries, something slightly more, or something much more remains to be determined.
Make sure you check back in here with WJZ and WJZ.com!
