BLOG: Last Day Of Winter

After a decent weekend, the following workweek will be characterized by a plethora of cloudiness and at least two periods of precipitation... at least one of which having the potential to produce snow across portions of the forecast area. High pressure will build across the Northeast today in the wake of yesterday's cold front, and this will bring about a more typical air mass for early spring (well, closer to average). Expect sunshine and low/mid 50s for the next couple of days with clouds increasing tomorrow evening in advance of the first system of concern.  Precipitation will begin late tomorrow night and early Monday morning and we may see a bit of snow or sleet across northern areas to start as the boundary layer moistens up. With the surface low passing through southern Ontario, however, warmer air will win out and we'll change to rain fairly quickly... it's worth mentioning. Temperatures will be problematic with the rainfall with MOS guidance as low as 53 for a high while the ECMWF is depicting low 70s... for now we'll go with a
high near 60... needless to say this is a low confidence call.
 
We may get a break on Tuesday as drier air works into the area behind a cold front, but not much sunshine is expected as the front stalls nearby and we'll still be looking at rain chances for southern and western sections of the viewing area. More widespread precipitation arrives on Wednesday and once again we may see a period of snow and/or sleet before a changeover to rain occurs (we hope). Right now model guidance is advertising a more southerly solution with the surface low tracking very close by, if not to the south... if this verifies then we may end up with more snow than rain, but it's way too early to know with any certainty how this will play out. For now we'll lean toward climo and have a change to rain in the afternoon.  

A deep trough becomes established over the Great Lakes and Northeast to close out the week, so a decent bet would be for below normal temperatures, a good deal of cloudiness, and perhaps a stray (rain or snow) shower. Winter isn't over yet.