An arctic blast will end the work week. Take a look at the forecast for the end of this weekend and coming weekend from Michael Beam.
It’s been a relatively average December thus far in Cinnaminson, but we’re in for a brief, yet abrupt, change to that pattern.
Wednesday is going to be our last ‘normal’ day before a sharp roller coaster ride temperature-wise. A lobe of energy, broken off from the polar vortex that circulates around the Arctic, will fall into the Northeast to end our work week and bring frigid air that we haven’t seen since last February. This will also be the cold air that likely sets us up for our first winter storm of the season.
As mentioned before, Wednesday will be a nice day with a mostly to partly sunny sky and a high in the low-40’s.
As the sun sets though, we’ll kiss the 40’s, and even 30’s, good bye until Saturday due to a polar cold front moving into the area overnight.
This cold front will bring the possibility of a scattered snow squall that could put down an isolated dusting overnight, but the main outcome will be a sharp uptick in winds and a crash in temperatures. The highest temperatures we’ll see on Thursday will actually come just after midnight on Wednesday night ahead of the front.
During the day on Thursday, Cinnaminson will experience strong wind gusts upward of 45mph and highs in the mid-20’s, with wind chills near 10°. The area could also see the chance of a left over lake effect snow shower, but that’s a slight chance and minor compared to the dangerous cold.
The worst part of our cold snap will be Thursday into Friday morning.
After Thursday’s sunset, wind chills will plummet to around 0° as winds continue through morning and lows dip into the low- to mid-teens by Friday morning, as shown in the image above of Tuesday afternoon’s NAM model run. Winds will die off for the daytime on Friday, but the arctic air will remain as highs only reach the mid-20’s again.
This week’s arctic blast will be short-lived but blows last week’s out of the water. It will help to set up an atmosphere that could sustain snowfall and ice on the front-end of a winter storm Friday night into Saturday. Our initial cold air mass heading into the storm will likely allow for an initial period of snow Saturday morning and possibly some freezing rain before a changeover to all rain by the afternoon as warm air rushes in from the south.
For now, it’s early, and details will need to be sorted out before anything more specific can be relayed, but the image below shows snow falling across the area at 7am on Saturday morning according to Tuesday afternoon’s GFS model run.
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