Quick one about Sunday and next week.
On Sunday we'll have a bit of snow. Not a lot. An inch or two at most.
Multiple hues of dark denim, multiple button malfunction, black leather gleaming, sprig of chest-fur peeks. His name is David Michael Hasselhoff, and you have seen more pictures of him than you ever imagined you would in your entire lifetime.Begins as flurries by noon. Then some steadier periods of light snow in the afternoon. 3pm-7pm is the period during which some slippery-roadway-creating snow will most likely fall. Flurries end by about 11pm. Most places will see only about an inch. Someone, somewhere might get as much as 2.2 inches. That's it, though.
Monday will be partly sunny and cold. A delay is not likely, but not out of the realm of possibility. High 28. Then it gets bitterly cold again overnight into Tuesday, falling to 8 (with breezy conditions making it feel like 0).
It's been some winter when single digits make us say, "Big frickage. Wake me up when it gets below zero. In fact, you know what? Don't wake me up 'til late March. I will hibernate, like an actual bear, for the next six weeks."
Yes, frickage. I just made it up.
Chance of delay Monday, 30%
Chance of cancellation Monday, 11%
Tuesday is cold too. Clouds breaking. High of 25. Single digits again at night. Yawn.
Partly cloudy and not quite as cold on Wednesday. High of 33!
Snow still looks likely for the Wednesday night-to-Thursday evening period. On Monday, I will have a better idea on that storm, and I will tell you fine people all about it.
Chance of early dismissal Wednesday, 23%
Chance of delay Thursday, 70%
Chance of cancellation Thursday, 55%
And then milder for the middle of the month and beyond.
Stay tuned for updates!
Weekend fizzles; next week action?
As of this morning, there were still a couple hundred thousand people with no power from Wednesday's ice storm, so I hope everyone is safe and warm...
Keep on the lookout for black ice tonight as the temperature gets down to about 12.
On to the much-discussed weekend. To be concise, we are lacking the ingredients we would need for a major snowfall. Saturday will be cold (high of 31) and mostly cloudy with a few snow showers likely in the late afternoon/evening range. Expect a mere coating from this action, but no appreciable accumulation. (This will be a "nuisance event," though, meaning that you should check the Doppler before you go out to see if you're likely to encounter snow. Remember: it doesn't take much snow at all to make the roads slippery, and even less to make people forget how to drive.)
On Sunday morning, expect a bit more snow. We could have light accumulations in some areas (an inch or two at most), but the majority of people will just have snow showers, tapering to flurries in the afternoon.
Der Graupel-Hassel-Hund (literally, sky fruit hirsute dog) poses in 1989 with his single "Looking for Freedom." Just take a moment to take a tall drink of Hoff: the chest fur, the ripped jeans, the superfluous leather. How is he not a bigger star? you wonder. He is the biggest star, I correct you.Monday looks sunny, windy, and cold (high 28); Tuesday will be even colder with a high of only 24. Overnight lows for both days will be in the lower teens.
The Wednesday afternoon through Thursday morning time frame is looking provocative for a winter storm. Right now I'd say this is looking likely, and it's setting up for an early dismissal Wednesday and a day off Thursday.
But! I think this coming week will bring our LAST SNOW DAY OF THE SCHOOL YEAR!! I think.
After that, things warm up a bit: highs in the 40s on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. And the 50s by the end of the following week (2/19, 2/20, 2/21)!
Stay tuned for updates...
Chubby snow, and then a mess Tuesday into Wednesday.
It was still snow here as of 2pm, but will taper and end by mid-afternoon. Snow totals I predicted were a little low. Be sure to email me your measurements (your snow measurements - keep it clean) so I can pass them along to the people.
Temperatures will drop into the 20s this evening, teens overnight. During tomorrow morning's commute, expect temperatures to be around 20. There will be some issues with freezing, and with roads that still haven't been cleared, but given that the snow will end by mid-afternoon, I don't see a cancellation tomorrow. It's a classic two-hour delay scenario.
Chance of delay Tuesday, 70%
Chance of cancellation Tuesday, 40%
Then the Tuesday night to Wednesday storm. Here's what I see:
Precipitation begins as snow Tuesday evening around 8 or 9pm. Snow accumulates 2-4 inches, then mixes with (and changes to) sleet and freezing rain by 9am Wednesday. Models are trending colder for this event, so it appears it will be mostly snow. That is good thing, actually, as a prolonged period of icing could lead to widespread power outages and all sorts of nastiness. Ends as rain early Wednesday afternoon.
His name is David Hasselhoff, and he can sing.Rain/snow lines, temperatures in the upper atmosphere, and surface temperatures will be key here. The forecast above is what I believe will happen. (I also predicted a grinding defensive battle in the Super Bowl, with the Broncos winning 18-14.)
Chance of delay Wednesday, 80%
Chance of cancellation Wednesday, 60%
Sunny, breezy, and colder on Thursday. High of 30, overnight low down to 8.
Chance of delay Thursday, 35%
Chance of cancellation Thursday, 10%
Sunny and cold again on Friday. High of 30.
Cloudy and cold on Saturday, but snow-free. High of 31.
Sunday into Monday looks like a significant storm. Later this week, that storm will come into better focus.
Stay!
Shit and two is eight.
My nana was fond of saying that--sometimes in a moment of idle ennui, sometimes when we were playing 500 Rummy and she got an inauspicious deal (or, "I've got a hand like a foot"), sometimes when something annoyed her. She was a rough-around-the-edges, gleefully profane little lady. I miss her.
Anyway, my nana's "shit and two is eight" is apropos here and now, given that we're getting snow tomorrow that will probably close school.
Shit and two is eight.
Precipitation will start as a little snow/sleet mix by 2 or 3am early Monday, then become all snow by 5 or 6am. Steadiest snow--and this will be a heavy, wet snow with large, juicy flakes--will fall from 8 or 9am to about 1pm. Snow tapers and ends by about 3 or 4pm. (Rain/snow line and set-up of intense banding can push totals higher in some places and greatly reduce totals for areas close by.)
Snowfall amounts:
Philly, burbs, Trenton, Lancaster County, Chester County: 5-7 inches
Reading and Berks, Allentown, South Jersey: 3-5 inches
Extreme South Jersey and Southern Delaware: 1-3 inches
Cancellation potentials (for Reading/Berks only):
Delay Monday, 15%
Cancellation Monday, 70%
Early dismissal Monday, 35%
Hoff, People's Choice Awards presenter, 1984.High will only about about 36, and that will happen early in the morning. Temperatures will fall, then hold steady just below freezing for the bulk of the day.
The roads will freeze overnight into Tuesday, so delays would be reasonable. High in the mid 30s.
Delay Tuesday, 40%
Cancellation Tuesday, 15%
The second system of the week will move through beginning about 8pm Tuesday night and continuing to early Wednesday afternoon. Precipitation will begin as snow and sleet overnight, but will mix with (and change to) rain by about 7 or 8am Wednesday. So a delay is feasible, but a cancellation is less likely.
Delay Wednesday, 60%
Cancellation Wednesday, 40%
Sunny Thursday but windy and colder: high of only 31. Similar action on Friday. Saturday 2/8 looks overcast and cold (high 28), but snow-free. Sunday still looks snowy, though.
Stay tuned for ... *sighhhhh*
"Finally, I can feel my face."
That is what millions in the Northeast will say on Friday as the temperature rises above freezing for the first time in about a week.
And I think the next few days will be the last of the extreme cold in this brutal, merciless, frigid, deep-bone-shuddering frost-scape of a winter. I mean, it'll still be cold. But normal cold for early February--highs in the upper 30s, lows in the lower 20s. Not Arctic Circle-type action.
Thursday 1/30 will be frigid, still, after a frigid night (down to 5 overnight). High 28, low 15.
Friday 1/31 looks mostly cloudy with a slight chance of a few snow showers. High 38, low 27.
Saturday 2/1 will again by mostly cloudy. Could be a little ice/sleet early; watch for icy patches. High 42, low 30.
Sunday 2/2 looks cloudy and breezy. Chance of a few afternoon rain showers. High 44, low 31.
Monday 2/3 looks variably cloudy and a bit colder. Flurries or snow showers possible. High 36, low 23.
Tuesday 2/4 will be sunny and uneventful. High 35, low 19.
Wednesday 2/5 brings our next chance of potentially disruptive snow. More than six days before the event, models conflict. Right now I'd make the following preliminary prediction:
30% chance of a complete miss - little or no precipitation.
20% chance of a mixed event - starting out as rain, changing to snow, accumulating 2-4 inches.
35% chance of an all snow event - accumulating 4-8 inches.
15% chance of an all snow event - accumulating 8-12 inches.
(I think that adds up to 100%. Math teachers, please check my work.)
Thursday 2/6 looks breezy and cold with clouds and sun. High 33, low 18.
Friday 2/7 looks colder still (but again, not the breathtaking polar deathgrip of this week and early January). High 28, low 16.
Next weekend (2/8 and 2/9) still looks snowy, particularly Saturday night into Sunday. It's a long way off, though. A lot can change between now and then.
The following week looks cold (nearly normal cold, with highs in the low to mid 30s). Looking at February 13th and 15th for some interesting weather. And when I say interesting, I mean, No, god no, not again, ugh.
Stay tuned for updates!!
In my idle traversing of the fecund underbelly of the internets, I found a website called Star Whispers that features Chinese horoscopes for celebrities. And of course, it includes material about David Hasselhoff. These are all real quotations from that website. I have not doctored them in any way.
"David Hasselhoff is technically talented which shows both in his thinking and his activities. He loves to detangled the most diverse things with the head and the hands in order to put them back together perfectly afterwards. David Hasselhoff likes to work independently and possess a professional attitude."- "David Hasselhoff is the bedrock of society, the foundation of any enterprise. He is an organizer and manager. David Hasselhoff's approach to life and to problems is methodical and systematic. He is a builder and a doer. David Hasselhoff turns dreams into reality." [Monsoon's note: those first two sentences are among the most profound that have ever been uttered. It is definitely fodder for a bumper sticker. Nay, a religion.]
- "David Hasselhoff is profound, does not like to reveal himself and is hard to comprehend. Therefore David Hasselhoff has only a few close friends and often feels not at par."
- "David Hasselhoff needs someone encouraging and motivating him. Sometimes David Hasselhoff seems to be a riddle. David Hasselhoff's ideas are hard to comprehend. With the money of others David Hasselhoff deals well and even increases the wealth. Not so much with his own."
- "Politics, this different kind of acting interests him and if he plunges into it it is not to play the role of an extra. His liking of glamorous appearances is part of his dynamic personality. With such a mentality David Hasselhoff will bring it to fame in any resort."
- "David Hasselhoff is always on the search for challenges and sentimental adventures. The amorous conquests can be an opportunity to verify his seductive skills - which is necessary to calm his ego -, but also is a must for his development."
I mean, it's just magnificent and endlessly fascinating. (The website, but also works for The Hoff.)
Saturday snow, another arctic blast, and what lies ahead...
Saturday's little clipper looks like it will bring some snow showers and stronger squalls (periods of intense snow) in the morning and afternoon. An inch or two of accumulation is likely (isolated areas could see three), but I don't see a big whoop with this one. Roads are pretty briny already, and most areas won't get enough snow to stick on the roads and make them treacherous.
So use caution if you're out and about tomorrow, but it's nothing that'll ruin your plans. Quite windy, too. High 30, low 9.
Cold and windy on Sunday with a snow shower or two in the late afternoon (no accumulation). High 22, low 14. Wind chills dipping below zero.
It now appears that Monday's potential snowstorm will miss us to the north, giving us only flurries and ushering in another polar vortex, which is a fashionable weather term, but which really just means that it will be super cold, frigid, bitter, thanks a pantload, Canada. Mostly cloudy and windy; becoming much colder at night. High 32, low 4.
Pals Richard Dean Anderson (sharing a kiss with a killer whale) and David Hasselhoff. This is from the late 1970s, I think. Both were doctor-portraying heartthrob soap stars who had wider ambitions: R.D.A. played Dr. Jeff Webber on "General Hospital" and The Hoff was Dr. William "Snapper" Foster on "Days of Our Lives." MacGyver (1985) and Knight Rider (1982) were not even a glint in their dreamy eyes.Tuesday actually has the potential to be the most bone-chilling day in this winter of unprecedented, breath-robbing, cruel-and-unusual balls-coldness. Partly sunny with a high of 12 and a low of -2. Those a real temperatures. Not wind chills. (The wind chills will be slightly below zero during the day, -15 overnight.
Chance of delay Tuesday, 30%
Chance of cancellation Tuesday, 18%
Partly sunny and bitterly cold again (but not as windy) on Wednesday. High 14, low 0.
Chance of delay Wednesday, 30%
Chance of cancellation Wednesday, 16%
Sunny and cold again on Thursday - high 24, low 14.
Good news: Friday's potential storm is another miss. High 30, low 18.
Next weekend looks cloudy and cold with a chance of snow showers on Sunday. High of 30 on Saturday, then turning windy and actually climbing above freezing for a bit on Sunday.
The next chances of disruptive winter weather will be Tuesday 2/4 and Friday 2/7. And maybe Monday 2/10. Temperatures throughout the week will be cold, but not as cold. Highs in the upper 20s, that sort of thing.
Stay tuned for updates!!
Tuesday will be a snowy, frigid mess.
The models have shifted, and now it looks as though Tuesday's storm will be a bit more significant than I initially thought.
Light snow begins between 9 and 11am, then intensifies in the afternoon. Heaviest period of snow will be from about 1pm to 6pm. Then snow will taper by 9pm or 10pm.
Accumulations:
- 4-6 inches in Philadelphia's immediate suburbs and on out to Lancaster County, Berks, Lebanon, and Lehigh.
- 2-4 inches in areas north and west of that. The "line" between 2-4 and 4-6 will be quite sharp, and looks as though it will cut through Lebanon, Berks, and Lehigh Counties. So if and when that happens, areas in central and southern Berks would get 5 inches, while northern Berks only gets 2. Like that.
- 6-8 inches in extreme southern Pennsylvania, much of Philadelphia, south Jersey, and Delaware. Isolated areas in this band could approach a foot of accumulation--particularly south and east of Philadelphia.
Now about school cancellations and whatnot.
Because Hasselhoff. #becausehasselhoffConsiderations: the temperature will be 20 degrees around 7am, then fall to the mid teens by 5pm, and fall to the single digits overnight into Wednesday. Winds will start fairly light, but by 5pm the winds will be 15-20mph sustained, driving wind chills into the negative single digits. Wind chills by early Wednesday morning will be in the neighborhood of -12.
The roads will become slick even in light snow. In colder temperatures, road treatments like brine and rock salt are less effective. The evening rush on Tuesday will be treacherous: snowy and windy with drifting snow, low visibility, and temperatures in the teens.
I'm stalling.
Here are my predictions. Again, these are not meant to add up to 100%.
Chance of delay Tuesday, 10%
Chance of cancellation Tuesday, 60%
Chance of early dismissal Tuesday, 75%
Chance of delay Wednesday, 65%
Chance of cancellation Wednesday, 30%
Stay tuned for updates!
Tuesday 1/21/14 snow chances - and beyond...
Some of the forecast models are picking up on a speedy little clipper system moving through on Tuesday, and suggesting that it could produce accumulating snow and travel delays for some.
It looks more like a quick dusting.
Here's what I see for the coming week:
Monday 1/20: More clouds than sun. Chilly with a high of 38. Widely scattered rain or snow showers possible in the afternoon. Winds will make it feel like 20s during the day, single digits at night.
Tuesday 1/21: Noticeably colder and mostly cloudy again. A clipper may leave an inch or two of accumulation in Delaware, Philly, and South Jersey, but I don't expect more than a dusting for the Berks region. This would be a mid-morning-to-mid-afternoon joint: 10am to 2pm? Something like that.
High 22, low 5. (Wind chills: single digits during the day, negative single digits at night.)
Chance of cancellation Tuesday: 15%
Chance of delay Tuesday: 7%
Chance of early dismissal Tuesday: 19.5%
Gratuitous Hasselhoff pic.Wednesday 1/22: Sunny, breezy, and frigid. High 17, low 9.
Thursday 1/23: Partly cloudy and still a bit breezy. Afternoon snow showers or flurries can't be ruled out. High 26, low 11.
Friday 1/24: Hey, something different! It will be breezy and cold, but the sun will be out. High 26, low 12.
Saturday 1/25: Predominant clouds. Maybe a snow shower or two. High 32, low 18.
Sunday 1/26: Cold with sun and clouds brr. High 28, low 9.
Next week: Not quite as frigid, but still cold. Watch out for some snow possible on Tuesday 1/28 into Wednesday 1/29.
Stay tuned for updates as more model runs are released. If the storm tracks west (which is not looking likely, but it's possible), then Tuesday will be more ... notable.