Cold Wave and Snow

Monday Morning

This map shows where the cold front was at 7 a.m. ET. The flow north of there can be traced all the way back to Greenland.

Once the leading edge of the change to colder weather -- the cold front -- reaches North Carolina, low pressure area will develop. That storm will head to the Virginia coast, then out past New England. Things can still changes as the storm takes shape, but here is our draft map as of daybreak today.

Quick Summary:

Next weather change: Sharp blasts of face-freezing breezings, thumbnumbing bitter blusters with the low winter sun a hapless bystander who gives up in disgust after 5 p.m. The feeble sun can do little to stem the freezer-full of air from the arctic snowfields when the Hudson Bay wind tunnel is open. We'll certainly be in winter's kingdom this week. We are in a time when cold and wind are constant companions; times when barren tree limbs snap brittly in the unforgiving blusters of winter's dim domain... the cold night ahead of us with the melancholy moon standing silent sentinel over the frozen ground. Icy needles of wind are marauding through the Midwest, whistling through Wisconsin, irritating Illinois, icing Iowa & mesmerizing Michigan. Now too, the cold penetrates Pennsylvania, nips New Jersey, cools Connecticut, rushes through Rhode Island, marches through Massachusetts and Maryland, dashes through Delaware, and torques thru New York (not to mention vaulting into Vermont, turning temperatures negative in New Hampshire, and minusing Maine). Then it ventures through Virginia, considerably cools the Carolinas, As we feel the chill driving us to January's gelid jailhouse, our thoughts might wander to spring. One day, some day, the sun will coax us back toward milder times. One day, some day, the cautious crocus and daring daffodil will show their bright flowers to the first tender warm breezes. But those times will seem all too remote and inaccessible the next few days, with mornings for the mittens and scarves, parkas and hoods, a wintry wakeup inside the gates of January's jailhouse. We still sail on the iceberg strewn great gulf of winter, its uncharted waters of cold waves loom larger this morning, the ice water plenty deep. We heading off into the midst of a classic bitter cold ice bound winter cold snap, when face freezing winds run rampant across the winterscape as the sun is just a feeble bystander an eternity away.