We’ve been advertising this for a couple of weeks, and now it’s moving in this week -- the first true arctic air of the season, plus the first significant snow threat. There’s no way to stop the arctic blast, and it will be hard to miss at least some snow later this week.
FIRST: THE COLD
Here is a map of current wind chills in the U.S.
Yes, the chill is below zero from Chicago to Canada, with some readings lower than 40 below! By Tuesday morning, the below-zero chills should reach the N&W suburbs of Philadelphia. That’s a full 30 degrees colder than it felt this morning.
It won’t warm up much during the day Tuesday, with highs only in the mid-20s. Wind chills won’t get any better than about 10 ... even lower N&W. Then, Tuesday night we will see wind chills go down to near 0, even in Philadelphia. Even Wednesday and Thursday won’t see much of a warm-up.
THE SNOW
This snow season has been almost non-existent so far. Here are some totals so far:
| City | This Season | Normal |
| Philadelphia | 1.1" | 7.4" |
| Allentown | 8.1" | 12.1" |
| Atlantic City | 2.6" | 6.4" |
| Wilmington | 0.7" | 7.0" |
- Live: Interactive Radar
We’re not that far below average in Allentown. And, those numbers will change by this weekend.
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Several small snow threats this season have been foiled by air that was just barely too warm. And there have been no big snow threats. Now that we’re going to be in an arctic air mass, it’s a good bet that any precipitation will start as snow. The storm track will determine if it stays all snow, or changes to some ice, or even rain. But even a northern track should produce significant snow before any changeover.
Our late-week storm is now in the Pacific Ocean, not far from Alaska. It will re-develop in Colorado and start moving our way Thursday. It’s not a monster storm, and it will be moving quickly, so there’s a limit on snowfall, even if it’s all snow. But it’s one of those storms that will surely develop, and surely move into very cold air. That adds up to pretty high confidence of snow so far in advance.
It’s still too early to tell whether the storm will track north or south of us, or whether it will be all snow or not. But the threat of enough snow to shovel and plow is about 70 percent at this time. We’ll see how those numbers change during the week.
