winter wx headlines of this weekend and upcoming week fcst..

[WXBUFFJIM]

Good evening folks. An interesting, yet brutal weekend in through here. Here near Baltimore, even near the water it was very cold, the coldest since January 2000 here. The difference is the fact that I've never seen it this cold without snow pack. It's a pretty rare occurrance to see single digit temps without snow pack here in Maryland.

On Saturday morning, the low was 7 with -10 wind chills at times here in Essex, MD Baltimore County. Down at BWI where Baltimore weather records are kept, it was 6 degrees Saturday morning. The record low at BWI on Saturday morning was -2 degrees set back in 1875. The high temp yesterday in Essex was 21 while BWI Airport reached 19 on Saturday. This mornings low temperature both in Essex and at BWI was 7 degrees with near calm winds. The record low this morning at BWI was 1 set in 1982. Still a very cold morning. Then with southwest winds today, BWI reached 30 and it hit 32 here in Essex. We actually got to freezing today with a stiff southwest wind at 10-20 mph.

Looking ahead reveals a tail of two seasons here throughout the upcoming week. On Monday, downsloping winds and a warm frontal passage will both combine and produce above normal temps. Highs near 51 on Monday for Baltimore, MD. That's as warm as it's going to get this upcoming week. A cold frontal passage will put the northeast and Mid Atlantic region back into the deep freeze Tuesday night right through Friday and beyond.

On Wednesday night and Thursday, a clipper system could fire up along the mid atlantic coast with snows likely from New York down through DC. The track of the low favors potentially 3-6 inches of snow in DC and BALTIMORE and possibly 4-8 inches in Phildelphia. The ratios are quite high in this storm. So it wouldn't surprise me to see amounts nearing 10 inches in parts of Pennsylvania and central New Jersey with this storm. This is if this current trend in the computer models verify. The bottom line is to simply keep an eye on this storm from the VA/NC border including Richmond and Virginia Beach northward into Long Island and in southern New England also. Somewhere in between those areas will likely see a significant snowfall Wednesday night into Thursday.

Then arctic air is expected to be quite intense Thursday night into Friday across the northeast and mid atlantic region. With this recent arctic snap, most areas in the megalopolis saw no snow cover. By Thursday night and Friday, most areas in the megalopolis would have seen snow cover of one inch or more. The snow cover will refrigerate the atmosphere even more. This will be even more true up near Boston and for new england where the heart of this next arctic surge will occur. For example Boston will be down to minus 7 with wind chills between 30 and 40 degrees below zero Thursday night. A dangerously cold airmass. This comes after a high of just 5 Wednesday for Beantown.

An interesting week ahead and worth watching too. More updates later.

Jim

[JCT777]

Thanks for the update, Jim.