Bitter cold continues here in Putnam County! After a series of clipper cold fronts have passed through with rounds of snow showers, the skies have cleared out once again and temperatures have fallen into single-digit territory overnight. We may wake up to 9 degrees in the valleys and even colder in the mountains and higher elevations. The good news is that some changes are on the way after a rather frosty morning outside!
A few mountain snow showers will be around as north winds continue, but impacts look mainly to be during the afternoon and evening. A few peeks of cold sunshine warm us up above freezing and into the mid 30s for Thursday. A light dusting or coating is possible with the heavier bands of snow, but the moisture flow off the Great Lakes will continue to weaken into nighttime, which further reduces the amount of snow showers.
In exchange, we allow high-pressure ridging back into the pattern for Friday. The 5-plus inches of snow depth will be melting away to finish the work week! A mix of sun and clouds and highs getting into the 40s for a seasonably cold afternoon. In comparison, this is warmer than we have been the last two weeks this month. But mountain areas and ski resorts will definitely keep some snow on the ground as temps stay in the 30s. At this point, there will be much more melting than freezing going on in the leftover snowpack. Breezy south winds will signal our next approaching storm system, which will arrive on Saturday.
Another cyclone of low pressure will approach the region to start off the weekend. With the main storm system still up into Canada, a lot of warm air will mix up from the south into West Virginia. Ƶ a new low-pressure wave forms in Tennessee and Kentucky, this is another ƵnorthwardƵ track for the storm system to take. We should start off with plain rain from this system with a wintry mix to snow showers over the eastern mountains and higher terrain. Ƶ the strong cold front trails from the lead storm system from Canada, the timing of the frontal passage will mean everything for when we transition over to snow showers once again Saturday evening.
In addition, I am seeing an alarming trend into the pattern behind this frontal passage. While West Virginia may not see temperatures this cold, air temperatures of 15 to 20 below zero may be occurring in parts of Minnesota and Wisconsin with extreme arctic cold! Some of this cold will sink further southward, and the rain-to-snow transition line may reach the Southern states of Georgia and Louisiana once again just as it did with a winter storm earlier this season. I expect some high-pressure ridging to develop to our southwest early next week. However, expect some snow for Saturday night to accumulate around here before the system quickly passes by. Into Sunday and Monday, I can promise highs only in the teens with single-digit morning lows and strong north winds to blow through.
With additional storm development to our south and east, the Mid-Atlantic region will have to monitor the forecasts through the week as storm tracks move more northward and eastward. There may be another snowstorm in the future for the East Coast states before January finishes up. For us, a few wind-driven mountain snow showers will be manageable through Wednesday as the high-pressure ridge gives us a brief break into the 40s. However, the bottom line is that we have a month and a half of meteorological winter still to come, and we cannot put the snow shovels and winter coats away just yet with such dramatic swings in our weather pattern!
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