Cold and dry

After our first real snowfall of the season (total: 4.4"), an arctic air mass will begin to enter the region today behind the storm. Despite bright sunshine, temperatures wont rise too much this afternoon. Tonight, temperatures will tumble to around zero, on the heels of winds gusting over 30mph. The combination of the cold and wind will create wind chill values of around -15 to -25. A wind chill advisory has been issued for tonight. Temperatures on Monday may have a hard time even getting out of the single digits. Skies will turn mostly cloudy tomorrow and there will be a slight chance of a snow shower through tomorrow night as the remenants of lake effect snows reach the area behind a relatively dry shortwave. No accumulation is expected. Lows Monday night will fall below zero, and continued howling winds will force advisory level wind chills upon us once again. Skies will become partly cloudy on Tuesday with not much change in temperature. Wednesday, skies will clear up, and temperatures will rebound a few degrees. Thursday and Friday, temperatures will rise up into the 20's as ridging to our south starts to build in. A clipper system will swing through the region next weekend, and this could bring a better chance of snow to New England. There is a general consensus among the medium range models for the possibility of some light accumulation with this storm. The 12z run of the Euro actually shows phasing and redevelopment off the coast on Saturday with high accumulations. The pattern would be favorable for such a storm, and I had mentioned this possibility a week or so ago, but for now, I'll stick with the GFS model and only light snowfall. High pressure moves in behind the storm. There is a growing indication that another arctic air mass could move into the region for next week. The Euro is also particularly supportive of this forecast. The GFS, once again is backing away from this. I suppose I should say this right now: The GFS is essentially following Phil (the groundhog)'s forecast and for the most part ends winter in the east next week. All the other long range models continue the cold through the middle of February. The CPC is liking this forecast at the moment, and has placed parts of the Mid Atlantic and Northeast at a 40% chance for a below normal February temperature-wise. Past the middle of February though, temperatures will rebound above average, but not high enough to fully cancel out the cold occuring this week and possibly next week.
Besides the clipper this weekend, another event out around day 11 (Wed - Thu next week) has been getting some support all around with some sort of storm shown. The latest run of the GFS has hopped on board with a nice coastal, so we have something else to watch in the long term.
Teleconnections overview: NAO is neutral right now and will stay neutral or positive through the rest of this month. This means that any arctic air masses will not stick around for long, almost ensuring the fact that the end to February will be warm. The PNA has reached above +1SD and will stay positive at least through the next two weeks. A switch to a negative PNA is possible towards the end of the month, however, a it should return to positive to start off the month of March. This means that through the next two weeks, ridging in the west will leave the door open for polar vortices to enter the northeastern US provided the AO cooperates. The end of February, the ridging will shift eastward pushing highs above average in the midwest and eventually into New England. It appears now that the AO will not go as extremely negative as the ensemble guidence once forecasted. Currently, the AO is approaching -2SD and will likely bottom out around there early this week, before strengthening back to around -1SD later this week. The rise will not have too much effect except for a slight rebounding of temperatures as a weak ridges builds in the south. This ridge will be broken down anyway by the clipper system next weekend. Behind the storm, the model consensus is for the AO to fall back again, however that is where the model spread increases considerably. The state of the AO behind the storm will determine whether or not another cold shot will hit us next week. The possible bottoming out of the AO next week may coincide with the storm potential mid to late week.