Foggy Friday
The recipe for a temperature bust: Take one airport, add fog, a slight breeze off the river, and let the December sun not do its trick. Funny how the suburbs and the Lehigh Valley were a full ten degrees warmer than Philadelphia's airport on Thursday and you can thank the fog for that.
Fog will continue to form overnight and may be dense in places by morning. With fog and low clouds, temperatures will start out in the upper 30's and low 40's for most and warm into the 50's by late afternoon.
One thing that's been interesting to see on the models recently has been the evolution of a cool down in the Monday night/Tuesday timeframe along with an overrunning precip event. The last four runs of the GFS model have been 'relatively' consistent in the GFS, showing a front slipping down from Canada on Monday night and setting up a boundary somewhere in the Mid-Atlantic on Tuesday. A couple of recent runs have tried to set up a low over the Mid-Atlantic that would blow up as it pulled away. Assuming the GFS is right, it will rain on Tuesday and be no warmer than about 45.
There are a couple of questions with this cooldown in regard to how long it lasts (assuming it happens) and the fact that nobody else is really showing this set up. The EURO shows some shunting in the SE ridge and a cooldown but not to the extent of the GFS nor does it show a low developing. The Canadian takes a middle road -- a cooldown with precip but not developing or bombing low. The UK has high pressure over the Carolinas and us in the 50's to near 60.
With four different solutions, the Tuesday time frame looks pretty interesting and is something to watch. Until then though, we have several mild days ahead of us (if we can just ditch this fog tomorrow!) and a possible run at record warmth on Monday (record high is 65 for Monday...maybe it will happen?).
This is a neat set of pictures of an Aurora Borealis at Mount Washington in New Hampshire. Enjoy!
