After Christmas

Weather here in the lower Great Lakes is going to take a pleasant turn as we get into the days after Christmas. First of all, though, we have to wait for this big east coast storm to exit early in the week.  Once is does our winds will shift from the north to a more southerly direction and that will warm things up beginning Tuesday.

The beginning of the Christmas snow in North Carolina

My friend Brian, who used to live here in Akron, now lives near Charlotte, NC. It doesn't usually snow down there for Christmas. It is this year. (See his picture at left.) They are picking up several inches of the white stuff this weekend. After dumping snow in North Carolina, that system is going to head up the coast and on Sunday and Monday, blizzard and near blizzard conditions are expected from Philadelphia to Boston. If you plan to travel out that way, check ahead.  You really don't want to travel out there until Tuesday.

Meanwhile, back here in NE Ohio, on Tuesday we should get near or slightly above freezing. If we go above 32 degrees it will be for the first time since December 12th.  We will remain there (daytime highs) for several days. In fact, a surge of warm air heading into the region will push our daytime highs into the 40s on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. After that our temperatures should bounce around a lot.

Or normal daytime high in early January should be in the lower 30s. January and February are traditionally the coldest months of the year.  Last year February was a killer clocking in at nearly 3 degrees below normal.  I don't expect that this year.  As I mentioned earlier, while we will have some typical winter weather during the next two months, the pit of the winter has already passed.  We do look for another surge of cold, however, sometime in March.

Happy Holidays!