Forecast: Return of the cold

Sounds like an early start to DC's mud season is well under way. Love the warmer temps but could live without the mud covered dog every time we go for a walk. Hopefully the rest of the snow will melt soon and things will dry out a little.

So over the next 10 days or so "back to winter" or "cold" is lower-40s? If it's not snowing I'll take that.

For me cold is just above freezing or below. I don't really see 40s as "cold" per se, but I know it's all relative.

My walk to yoga last Tuesday was brutal. It's hard to be bendy when you feel like a popsicle. I hope the winds diminish enough by early evening to make the 40's feel balmier.

Superseiyan, yes, our normal temperatures are warming now that March is approaching. The normal high today in DC is 46F and by next week, it will be 50F! Of course, the problem this morning is that while the DC airport temperature is above your freezing threshold at 34F, the wind chill is an unpleasant 24F.

State College PA http://forecast.weather.gov/product.php?site=NWS&issuedby=CTP&product=AFD&format=CI&version=1 keeps talking about wintry weather on Mon/Tues, but it sounds like we will be near or south of the boundary so anything from cold rain to a bit milder with showers.

Eric654, yeah, there are hints on some modeling, like the Euro ensembles, that we could get enough cold in here late Sun or Mon to mix precipitation so I put the low chance in there of something. Model support for anything significant right now is sparse. And you're correct- it would be a bigger story farther north, probably.

...and so the speculation begins... >:]

just got back from my morning snow hunt.

the GFS is showing LOTS of precip coming through here next week: 3 storms from the 21st to the 26th. they still show lots of stupid RAIN. but...they're starting to waffle on that. last night spgass1 pointed out a frame showing snow on the 24th - that's gone back to stupid rain. but now, if you look really closely, (after tons of rain to start) this frame brings snow on the "back end" of the last storm on the 26th:

http://www.nco.ncep.noaa.gov/pmb/nwprod/analysis/namer/gfs/06/images/gfs_pcp_276m.gif

that's 2-5" of snow. if i'm coming across as desperate, it's because i am. 'tis the season for big wet SNOW! and we're getting "lovely" 50/60s puleeeze... there's plenty of time for "lovely" mild weather in late march and april and may and june... give me winter during winter, please.

CWG, wxperts,
i'm not looking for opinions on anything specific about the storms or the dates or anything like that, but, is there any large-scale, long-range guidance that brings cold back next week? anything about the jet stream or some oscillation? or are we still just counting on "climatology" (which itself is rapidly becoming too warm for snow)?

Hey Walter, well after being MIA for Dec-Jan, the La Niña pattern is finally in place over North America. This means that a warm Southeast ridge will prevent us from seeing as much cold weather. However, this pattern is wobbly in that the models sometimes shift the big Aleutian ridge into the Gulf of Alaska, and they sometimes edge some ridging over Greenland (-NAO). These "wobbles" allow us to see some cold air at times, which can introduce some wintry weather chances. Unfortunately, the models struggle with this pattern type, so we get a lot of mixed messages until we get closer to event chances. But I have to say that now we're in full-blown La Niña type weather, the odds of a significant event are low.

thanks, matt. bring on those "wobbles".

For big winter weather potential, I'd rather have the big blocks from earlier this season, but the "wobbles" are all we have left between now and spring!

matt,
sure, i guess i would too. but when we had those "big blocks" we never seemed to get precipitation. was that just bad luck? or is there something about the "big blocks" that inhibit precip here? or something about the precip here that erodes the blocks?

I'm interested to know if NWS responds about that 78 mph gust in Leesburg Monday around 2:00 p.m. I checked the other NW exurbs stations. Martinsburg/Shepherdstown reported its highest gust of the windstorm in the same timeframe, so it's possible something went through around then. Martinsburg's gust was recorded as 55 mph.

http://raleighwx.americanwx.com/models/00zlinegraphs.html NAO trending Negative .. For some reason NOAA's teleconnection indices havent updated in days... http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/pna/nao.shtml

Walter, overall, those blocks were lined up slightly different (and were slightly weaker) than last year when we had them. Therefore, NYC to Boston got what we got last year. Nonetheless, we did very well on the snow front for a strong La Niña winter, which is usually very snow-starved.

Pseaby, NOAA is aware of their problem re: the teleconnections and are working to fix it. Hopefully soon!

any coming storms are gonna have to battle the warm air to our south as they are done with winter. imo because of the south permanent warmup you are gonna need to be north of DC (per usual) to get any real snow the next couple weeks. my snow towel has been officially thrown. not just because i hate snow but also because it just seems highly unlikely at this point as most of this winter should already have pointed out to us.

as hard as its been to get snow all winter now its even harder.

I smell desperation from the snow lovers and I LOVE it!!

fakedude, your favorite season is not Winter, I take it?

Next week's weather most likely depends on how much Arctic air moves south of the Canadian border.

They can keep that Arctic air up in Canada eh?

Since a decent snow chance is basically 0, we sure could use some rain. With all the wind & low humidity recently most of the surface moisture has dried up, not good for spring growing season. With La Nina in full force dry condition will probably cont. into the immediate future.