It’s been a whirlwind of a few days around these parts, but, thankfully for those with Christmas travel plans, that’s all about to change- at least from a weather stand point.
A cold front will sweep through the state Wednesday morning and we’ll get a glancing blow of arctic air midweek.
This, combined with a fresh snowpack, will result in many neighborhoods waking up Thursday morning to 10s, and a few single digit reports.
With us being on the “outer fringe” of this arctic airmass, we’ll quickly moderate back to “normal” mid-December cold late week and into the weekend. This will be a harbinger of things to come as Christmas week, itself, kicks off.
Note the expanding upper ridge from the Plains into the Ohio Valley and Great Lakes region.
This will do a couple of things: shove the energy that could have led to a weekend East Coast storm south and result in an unusually quiet and mild time of things, locally for the Christmas holiday.
In fact, with the exception of a couple light snow showers in association with Wednesday cold frontal passage, we’re talking about a precipitation-free stretch through Christmas Day. Not only will the active pattern come to an abrupt halt, but temperatures will begin to moderate to well above average levels by Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Highs around the 50° mark are likely.
The next chance of meaningful precipitation just come just after Christmas and likely take the form of rain.