A cold front will move through the region on Sunday and this
will be followed by a reinforcing arctic front on Monday Evening and Monday
Night. A few flurries may accompany the first front on Sunday with increasing
wind following the frontal passage. Gusts of 30 to 40 MPH will be widespread
across our region. The second cold front will have a bit more moisture to go
along with it and a period of light rain or light snow may accompany the
frontal passage, especially in the northern portions of our region on Monday
Afternoon into Monday Night. It is possible that some scattered coatings of
snow may occur in spots where this falls as mostly snow.
Then it is just downright cold and brisk Tuesday,
Wednesday, and Thursday. It will be likely be a partly to mostly sunny period
with occasional snow flurries or snow showers, especially in the Poconos. High
temperatures will be in the mid to upper twenties with colder wind chill
values. Low temperatures will be in the single digits in the Poconos to teens
elsewhere. Philadelphia’s coldest high temperature in the past two years was 24 degrees and the coldest low temperature was 8 degrees. At this point, we appear
to stay above these values during this cold shot.
Friday into Saturday may be the best shot of substantial
winter precipitation we have seen so far this winter. But this event is far
from certain and it is still several days away which is certainly plenty of time
for drastic changes on the model runs. The models have had a hard time this
winter so far and I again point out that the models seem to take days that
appear colder far out and warm them up as they approach closer in time. The GFS
has two low pressure areas depicted with one arriving in our area on Friday and
then another, colder system impacting us on Saturday. The European model has
one low pressure system which would deliver the main course on Friday and the
EURO is cold enough for mostly snow during Friday. For now, this period of time in the seven
day forecast features very low confidence.
