BIG, Heavy Rain and Thunderstorms This Evening, Then Bitter Cold & Snow Returns!

Good Morning,

Some light winds which have an easterly component have prevailed overnight across the Tri-State Area... For this reason, most temperatures have "leveled off" in the upper 30s and lower 40s, and there's also some locally dense fog out there early today... A WHOLE LOT will be happening during the next 24-36 hours, so we'll break things down for you time period by time period:

1.) Locally dense fog early today will reduce the visibility to less than a quarter of a mile early today, and most temperatures should hover in the upper 30s or low 40s for a while, because the east or southeast wind off of the relatively cold ocean waters will prevent any significant jump...

2.) During midday and early this afternoon, while it will still be rather cloudy, a tendency for the winds to shift to the south by 2 p.m. and increase to 12-25 mph with some higher gusts will allow most temperatures to rise into the 50s, with the south-facing shores on Long Island and in coastal Connecticut "lagging behind" everyone else.... There should be a couple of showers around, and some may even hear a rumble or two of thunder before the day is through...

3.) Tonight, we'll be confronted with very rough weather as a cold front begins to bear down on the Eastern Seaboard... It is quite possible, first of all, that as the winds shift around to the southwest just ahead of this approaching cold front -- as long as there isn't much rain occurring before 9 or 10 p.m. >> we'll probably reach our maximum temperature of around 60 after night falls, but also before midnight... Then, as a corridor of heavy rain presses in from the west, there could be some flash flooding in any of the harder downpours, most of which would occur between the hours of 9 p.m. and 3 a.m. -- and with a strong, low-level jet streak aimed at most coastal communities (the winds are forecasted to be close to 70 mph at around 5,000 feet), any "mixing down" of these strong winds could lead to damaging wind gusts exceeding 50 mph in some places (especially between midnight and 6 a.m.)... Thunderstorm-related wind gusts, which would be associated with a "squall line" that accompanies this cold front, could also be quite strong... So we'll need to have our guard up for those, too... A general 1 to 2 inches of rain is expected tonight, but locally higher amounts up to 3 inches, especially if it falls in fewer than 3 or 4 hours, could cause flooding...

4.) Tomorrow, winds primarily out of the west and northwest will start to drag some much colder air into the region... Temperatures may actually be as high as 50 or 52 degrees shortly before dawn tomorrow, but will easily fall into the 40s and will probably be mostly in the 30s by tomorrow evening's rush hours... That will be followed by temperatures mostly in the 20s tomorrow night and no higher than the mid 30s on Friday... With strong winds aloft still projected to carve out a huge trough of low pressure in the Eastern Region on Friday, it will still be rather windy with some flurries possible...

The weekend should be cold, and we'll need to watch a disturbance diving out of the northwest (the Great Lakes vicinity) for a possible period of snow, or at least some flurries from Saturday night into early Sunday... The seasonably colder air is forecasted to loosen its grip on us early next week, but it should become reinforced by next Tuesday night or Wednesday...

Have a good day!!!