Continued cold in place, evening snow expected
Any Alert Days Ahead? Yes, FAWDs today & Thursday due to the cold.
Aware: Today's record low is -14 degrees. We won't hit it.
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) - There's a chance that temperatures today drop to the coldest we have seen in about a decade, with everyone across Western Pennsylvania seeing temperatures below 0 degrees. It's cold, dangerously so in many places. By now you know the drill of bundling up and just having a plan if you have to spend long stretches outside. Temperatures will begin to warm slowly through the rest of the week. Morning lows will stay above 0 degrees on Thursday morning with highs back in the mid to upper 20s. Today's highs will only be in the mid-teens.
For Pittsburgh today, I have highs hitting 15 degrees with noon temperatures near 10 degrees. As soon as the afternoon rolls around, skies will turn cloudy and we will stay overcast for the rest of the day and through Thursday. I have an isolated snow chance in place on Thursday with a slightly higher chance for snow on Friday.
Looking at the weekend, we see our airmass warming up with 850mb temperatures returning to a range of -5 to -10 degrees C. To compare, today's 850mb temperatures are in the mid-teens and yesterday's 850mb temps were all the way down in the -20 to -25 degree range. When it comes to what you can expect, the change in airmass temperature will mean highs should hit the low 30s over the weekend with morning lows remaining in the mid to low 20s.
Long term, it looks like our weather pattern will remain on the cold side heading into February. An easy way to look at it is through the temperature anomaly. Going back and using 850mb temperatures, we continue to see an airmass that is below our seasonal and daily average all the way through the first week of Feb. The good news is that, unlike today and yesterday when our five-day average was 10 - 15 degrees below the seasonal average, we will only be around 5 degrees below average heading into February. This tells us to expect temperatures that will be near or slightly below average for the next couple of weeks for most days.
Just a quick note, our snow chances appear fairly low over the next week with the best chance coming on Monday morning into the afternoon for places south of I-70. A couple of inches of snow should be expected for the Laurel Highlands.
