January 5 Weather Light Snow Or Rain Showers

Tuesday January 5 2021

A little disturbance is passing through today that will try and ignite some showers. These will be light, and temperatures aloft are marginal so the result may be flurries or sprinkles.  Temperatures on the ground will remain just above freezing, so it will not be a travel concern locally.  But far western Maryland could get a fresh coating to stick.

 

Morning Radar

 

 

UPDATE at 7:50 AM – How to be wrong and right at the same time.

We have more activity than models indicated already.

Radar is indicating ‘snow flakes’ falling (blue), but reports on the ground appear to be light rain.  

Temps are above freezing as expected, but just warm enough to allow the flakes to melt.   We still could mix in flakes this afternoon with colder air aloft. 

 

 

 

Morning Surface Weather

That trough (dashed line) has colder air aloft, which may allow the showers to have more flakes reaching the ground this afternoon.

 

Morning Temperatures 

Most of the region is above freezing. But if you travel west of Cumberland, some light snow could in the high mountains for a light coating.

 

 

 

Forecast Snapshot: Central Maryland 

 

 

Forecast

Morning: Flurries (or sprinkles) start to develop.

 

Noon: Scattered light showers may be more than shown on this model.  The result on the ground may be flurries or sprinkles.

 

Afternoon: A little added boost of activity may be most widespread.   This will be a mix of snow or rain.

 

 

 

High Temperatures 

 

Looking Ahead

Friday

The next few days will be quiet, so let’s jump to Friday. That system is still close enough to watch. It currently looks like a minor impact on our southern zones Friday evening, but I will continue to monitor any trend back north.

 

 

 

Monday

This is the system that looked so promising a few days ago. Almost too good, which is why I did not trust it. However, there is also history of models plotting a storm in the 7 to 10 day outlook, losing it, then finding it again.   The computer models do have upgrades, and adjust to each season differently.  So we need to account for that and still continue to evaluate.

Here the GFS is still showing the storm, but clipping our southern zones.  Meanwhile the European ECMWF has completely lost it.  A blip or a trend?  That is the ‘inside baseball’ I am sharing here so we can monitor together.

 

GFS Model has the storm: smaller and just south.

 

The European Model has completely lost the storm. Well, it shows up as a little wave well south with light rain off the Carolinas.

 

 

 

 

Temperature Outlook