Well, you gotta hand it to Mother Nature: her collab with Old Man Winter this weekend ended up being a banger and even I am impressed with both the longevity and intensity of this winter storm system. Sometimes all the ingredients do end up coming together and that’s what happened this weekend. The right combination of dynamics teamed up to dump over 8 inches of snow on the city (a record for the date, actually), and even though the storm system is long gone to our east, lake effect flurries continue this morning. 

And this is just the beginning of what will be an extended period of unusually wintry weather. 😭 A chunk of the polar vortex has been stretched away from the north pole and this has allowed an arctic air mass to spill southward. It’s arrival was announced with yesterday’s storm but it will very likely overstay its welcome as at least a week (or more). Temps today will hover right around freezing, but tonight they’ll drop into the teens (single digits west of the city), and highs tomorrow and tuesday will only be in the 20s.

More accumulating snow is expected tomorrow evening (another inch or two), but sun should return on Tuesday. 

The bottom really drops out on Weds and Thurs as temperatures collapse all the way to around 0 if not the negatives at night. Even MORE accumulating snow is possible next weekend before we finally start digging out.

This is an unusually early start to winter and is a foreboding sign for things to come…. However, the polar vortex is likely to snap back in to place over the next few weeks which will at least end the immediate barrage but there are many more months of winter to go…

Tl;dr - snow ending, temps cold, 30F. 10s tonight, 20s tomorrow, more snow Mon night. Very cold Tuesday-Thursday.

Every Weather Text since Jan 10, 2024 is archived at this link