Winter's Belated Beginning

For the first time in more than a month it's actually chilly outside. A graph of yesterday's hourly temperatures tells the story. The day started out warm but temperatures pretty much fell continuously until a couple of hours ago. The normal daytime heating was overwhelmed by the onrush of cold arctic air.

There was a 33 degree difference between yesterday's high and low temperatures. That's triple our normal daily temperature range in January, but it doesn't match up to the largest range we found. Gothamist has daily temperature data back through 1971. January 9th, 1978 also saw the passage of an arctic front. That day started out at 58 degrees and ended at 15 for a range of 43 degrees. Double digits above and below normal in one day!

While our weather over the next week will be more winter-like than what we've had so far this year, it still isn't too unpleasant. Today stays cool. In fact today is the first day the average temperature will be below normal since December 9th –a streak of 38 days. Tomorrow will warm into the low-40s. There's a good chance of rain tomorrow evening. The rain may mix with snow on Friday morning. Don't get excited the snow won't amount to much. The weekend is a bit of a mixed bag. Temperatures will be seasonable. A few flurries may fly on a windy Saturday but Sunday should be sunny.