Friday, January 3, 6AM
There’s a lot of potential winter weather to talk about over the next 72 hours with Sunday night and Monday beginning to come into focus, but for now, I am going to focus on this afternoon’s system. I’ll update on the Sunday night/Monday storm later this morning. Also, apologies for the ramble, but I don’t have time to do any real proofing right now.
A clipper system will cross the area this afternoon and bring the potential for a strong line of snow showers. Depending on location, surface temperatures may initially be too warm to support snow, but any rain will change to snow quickly. This is not expected to be a long duration snow event, but it is worrisome because of the potential brief intensity and also the timing. Right now it looks like a line of showers will cross central MD from about 2-4PM. Surface temperatures at the time are expected to be above freezing in all locations, but in the areas of heaviest precipitation, high snow rates could overcome warm temperatures and briefly accumulate on even roads. This could happen anywhere across central and northern MD, but models have focused on the northern tier (along and north of I 70) as the most likely areas to have issues. As a result, the NWS has issued Winter Weather Advisories for the counties bordering PA (Frederick, Carroll, Baltimore, Harford, Cecil) as well as Howard county.
Again, this will not be a long duration snow event and for many areas the snow will not be an issue. There is some concern however, that once the front passes and temperatures drop relatively quickly, that there will not be time for pavement to dry before temperatures fall below freezing this evening. Again, most likely areas for concern are the normally colder areas to the north.
So, in brief, this afternoon will probably be no big deal for most areas, but be prepared for a brief period of heavy rain to snow showers, and possible icy conditions once the sun begins to set.
More on Sunday night and Monday later this morning.
The Weather Mill 