Posted by Dave Longley - January 2, 2007 - An impressive surge of arctic air will make for bitter cold weather for the next couple of days. We expect temperatures only in the low teens, with wind chill temperatures within a few degrees of zero.
If you're not a fan of the cold, there is an end in sight, which might make it a bit easier to endure. The deep trough, or dip in the jet stream over us now, will be replaced by a ridge of warmth in the jet stream, that could get our temperatures back up into the 50s by early next week. A bona fide January thaw. (I'm sure Teske has some numbers on that)
This arctic air is taking no prisoners. They have hard freeze warnings as far south as Floriday, with Orlando expected to dip down into the mid 20s by Thursday morning! There were flurries yesterday just north of Atlanta.
For us, we deal not only with the cold, but the lake effect snow. Winds are pretty northerly, which means the cold air is crossing the narrow axis of Lake Ontario, cutting back on its ability to pick up moisture. Also, the ambient air upwind of the lake is bone dry, so this stuff will struggle through today. The lake effect will get a little help from an upper level disturbance, that will arrive this evening and could briefly "juice up" the lake snows. Behind that feature, the winds will get pretty northerly again, and everything should taper to flurries Thursday. Lake effect snows should come to an end entirely by Thursday night, with a gradual moderation in temperatures carrying us into the weekend.
