Tuesday, January 7th, 2014 - Evening Weather Discussion

My weather station recorded a high temperature today of 7.7 and that was at midnight.  Otherwise the daytime high temperature was 6.7, which makes for one of the coldest days I can remember.  The good news is that temperatures will not drop tonight, in fact they may actually rise a couple of degrees overnight as the polar vortex starts to make the trip back to where it belongs.  This will allow high temperatures to possibly make it into the 20's tomorrow, to around 30 on Thursday, and likely to near 40 on Friday, although there will also likely be a dusting to a half inch of snow on Friday morning.  The temperature will then likely make it well into the 50's on Saturday late in the day with some heavy rain.  Then there is a tremendous amount of uncertainty with the models as to what will happen starting on Sunday.  Right now my best guess is that a rather strong storm will start to form along the Gulf Coast and head in our direction, potentially forming into a rather strong Nor'easter.  However, it does not currently appear that there will be any cold air as this storm approaches, although it is remotely possible that this storm could become so strong that it would either make its own cold air or pull the cold air down from Canada.  This however is highly unlikely and we will likely just get heavy rain on Sunday night.  There is also a chance this storm misses us completely out to sea.  The next chance of snow would likely be next Wednesday as another storm may form along the Gulf Coast and move northward into our area, although this time there would be a better chance that cold air would be in place.  Then another storm may form for next Saturday, bringing us an even better chance for snow as it is likely to get quite cold going into next weekend.