Weather! Cold, blustery start to the week

There’s a light snow falling as I’m writing this on Sunday evening. Temperatures have dropped eight degrees over the past four hours, winds have been picking up steadily, and we’ve had a light snow falling for the last couple hours. The cold front that brought today’s rains is moving out to sea, along with an […]

December 12, 2010; 11:18 PM • by Weather Dan

There’s a light snow falling as I’m writing this on Sunday evening. Temperatures have dropped eight degrees over the past four hours, winds have been picking up steadily, and we’ve had a light snow falling for the last couple hours.

The cold front that brought today’s rains is moving out to sea, along with an associated area of low pressure that’s sitting over the state tonight. The driver for all of this weekend’s precipitation, a much stronger area of low pressure centered in the vicinity of Lake Ontario. The power of this low pressure, combined with a strong area of high pressure located over Greenland, is pulling a large Arctic air mass across the eastern United States tonight.

Temperatures tonight will plummet into the upper 20s from a balmy 42 at 10pm. There’s a small possibility of a little scattered precipitation over the next few hours, but I wouldn’t expect much more. Low moisture will stick around through Monday, meaning we’ll see lots of low clouds before they clear out through the evening hours. The clouds will help keep a little extra heat in during the day, allowing temps to get into the upper 30s in the afternoon. Winds will pick up throughout the day, staying above 10 miles per hour for most of the day and possibly gusting as high as 30. (If you’re playing along at home, a temperature of 37 and a wind of 30 miles per hour gives us a wind chill of 24 degrees.) Lows Monday night will fall into the upper teens, and winds lightening somewhat, dropping to about 15 miles per hour overnight. Again, however, the combination of strong winds and cold temperatures will put wind chills into the single digits. If you’re out after dark, please use care and stay warm!

The clouds will clear out for Tuesday, and temperatures will struggle to find 30 degrees. Winds will pick up again during the day, with gusts as high as 35 miles per hour, and wind chills again in the single digits and teens. In a word – cold! Winds will die back to around 10 mph Tuesday night, but with lows near 15, you can guess where the wind chill will continue to stay.

Temperatures will moderate somewhat on Wednesday, climbing back into the mid 30s. The winds will begin to lighten some as well, staying only near 10 miles per hour with some slightly higher gusts under mostly sunny skies. Temperatures Wednesday night will fall back into the lower 20s with lighter winds.

The later part of this week is in a bit of flux still; some of the longer-range computer models are hinting at another disturbance developing later this week. It’s still too early to tell exactly what, if anything, will fall, or when it’s going to happen exactly., but there’s definitely plenty of cold air in place. I’ll have another update about what to expect on Wednesday.

December 12, 2010 11:18 PM 1