Jan 12, 2012 Brief Update

Although I was unable to post a full discussion for tonight, the 5-Day Forecast page has been updated, with a full discussion with tomorrow's update.

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Wind Tomorrow: With the cold front moving through the area on Friday morning, accompanied by a round of showers tonight, temperatures will quickly drop by the late morning into the 30s across the area. In addition to the temperature drop, strong wind gusts will develop across the entire area, with widespread gusts above 45 mph likely. Gusts are likely to reach and exceed 50 mph in parts of the area, especially in New York City and Long Island, with parts of Long Island potentially getting close to 60 mph wind gusts. These strong gusts will continue through the evening before starting to calm down overnight. Mostly cloudy skies are expected tomorrow along with the potential for isolated rain or snow showers, especially towards NW NJ and Orange County in NY.


Saturday - Monday: A cold air mass will move into the region, bringing much colder temperatures. Saturday will bring highs into the mid 30s across the area with partly sunny skies, and as the coldest temperatures arrive along with a high pressure, Saturday night will bring widespread low temperatures in the 10s across the area, possibly dropping below 10 degrees in the interior parts of the area, followed by mostly sunny skies on Sunday and highs in the mid to upper 20s across the area. After another round of cold temperatures on Sunday night, Monday will bring sunny skies with temperatures rising into the lower to mid 30s across the area.


Tuesday/Wednesday - Rain returns: A low pressure will move towards the Great Lakes region, resulting in warmer temperatures for Tuesday, reaching the mid to upper 40s across the area. Mainly cloudy skies are expected as well along with scattered showers across the region. These showers will continue through Tuesday night, with a lower rain risk for Wednesday along with the return of colder temperatures.


Thursday - Beyond: A relatively strong yet transient cold air mass will move into the region on Thursday into the weekend, bringing colder temperatures once again, with highs possibly staying below the 30 degree mark at least once in this time frame if the colder case scenario verifies. Beyond this time frame, however, with another polar vortex spreading into Alaska along with a developing zonal flow, the potential may be there for warmer temperatures to return across much of the United States, including the region and the NYC area, for the week afterwards. More long range updates will be posted with tomorrow's update.