From Sunshine, to Snow, to a Blast of Winter Chill
- by Leland Aguilar
- in Entertaiment
- — Dec 15, 2016
And what a difference from last December! Low temperatures will fall to the frigid 6 to 13 degree range. The opposite extreme is expected late this week.
There's a similar outlook for Saturday ahead of our next arctic blast with highs near 70 degrees. With strong northwesterly winds blowing, wind chills will be near zero during the day Thursday and may be as low as -10 to -15 Thursday night and Friday morning along mountain ridges. A powerful storm system emerging out West will funnel that air further south... and this air mass has origins all the way in Siberia where a record snowpack has allowed that cold air to be further enhanced.
Winds are expected to pick up over the Great Lakes, sparking another round of lake-effect snow. With lighter winds and a fresh snow cover, expect temperatures to drop quickly Friday Night. Low temperatures will be around zero for many communities, and winds will gust 30 to 40 miles per hour.
This is risky cold, the likes of which we haven't seen since late February of 2015. At those levels, even a light wind produces wind chills near or below zero. Winds N 5-15, gusting to 20 miles per hour.
Thursday, a very powerful cold front will be moving through.
"I've been consistently amazed at how well we have mimicked the strong 1982-83 El Niño and subsequent exit to weak La Niña", Fisher wrote Tuesday morning, noting that this year we are transitioning from a very strong El Niño to a La Niña. In addition, gusty NW winds will result in risky wind chills Thursday Night into Friday. Highs on Thursday will be in the teens and Lwr 20's.
As the warm air tries to nose its way into New England on Saturday, we will see an area of snow develop.
For the weekend, it continues to look like snow will be a factor early Saturday.it could be plowable, before a transition to rain through the afternoon hours as temperatures warm into the upper 30s and lower 40s.
