THURSDAY WEATHER BRIEFING
GOOD MORNING! HAPPY FRIDAY EVE
A frigid night as expected last night; my low was -1 in Boardman. Sunglasses are a must today with high pressure providing lots of sunshine to reflect off our fresh snow pack.
Cold though with temperatures almost 10 degrees blow average this afternoon.
FRIDAY: WINDY AND MUCH WARMER
A strong pressure gradient will set up on Friday with high pressure near the Eastern Seaboard and a strong low pressure area in the Upper Midwest. That will result in some strong winds across the region, especially to our west.
A "low level jet" will get going, a very fast-moving river of air only 5,000 feet above our heads. Winds will be screaming at 70-95 mph in that jet.
Thankfully, a fairly strong inversion will prevent a lot of that wind energy from getting pulled down to the ground. But it will be windy anyway thanks to the pressure gradient. Some gusts can reach 40 mph or so in the afternoon. 50 mph+ gusts are likely in western Ohio.Temperatures will soar and a LOT of melting will occur Friday and Friday night.
THE WEEKEND
What a great day Saturday will be. We'll have a good deal of sun with highs in the middle 50s. Not record territory but still way above average. Car washes will be hopping.Sunday is a tougher forecast as a weak area of low pressure will scoot across the Ohio Valley. Will the rain with this system come this far north? Probably but it is not a certainty. It will still be mild.
ANOTHER MAJOR STORM....FOR SOMEONE
The models continue to produce a strong signal for a major storm system SOMEWHERE in the East during the middle of next week. We are too far out to hone in on details, but we can talk about trends.It seems likely that a low pressure area will track into the Lower Ohio Valley or the Appalachians and then may or may not transfer energy to or evolve into more of a coastal low. This is in the Tuesday-Wednesday time frame.
Notice the European model ensemble suite does not have a tight clustering of low pressure placements but you can see the general idea it is going for.I think odds are favoring *SOME* impacts for us in eastern Ohio/western PA. Big impacts? Nuisance impacts? Don't know that yet.Weather weenies and snow lovers no doubt are drooling over the operation run of the European model this morning. It has a comparable storm to this week's. The ensemble mean snowfall is quite a bit less though. Bottom line: All things are on the table. No impacts, some impacts, big impacts. I lean toward "some" at the moment. Stay tuned.
2 DEGREE GUARANTEE
A nice run going. Hoping to make this a BIG run of checks.
WEATHER FOR WEATHER GEEKS:
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