I’ll explain the blog title in a minute.  The cold part is self explanatory.  We have clear skies, very dry air, and light winds tonight.  Temps are expected to drop to the low-to-mid 20s overnight.  There may even be a few teens inland.  I’d drip the faucets as there will be a significant period of time where temperatures are below the freezing mark.   It only needs to be a slow drip.  Bring in the pets.  Also…a lot of plants are blooming early this year.  My wife has some lillies that are already sprouting in the front yard.  If you have something like that, then you may want to put down some protection.  A little spare mulch would be good around the sprouts.  A little extra dirt around the base maybe.  (Temporarily)  Definitely bring in any potted plants.  I wish Dabney was here. 

Tomorrow will be a little warmer with highs in the upper 40s to near 50 and sunshine.  Easy forecast.

Now on to the million dollar question.  (place laugh here).  A viewer commented on the last blog, and said they would bet one million dollars that it won’t snow on Sunday.  I wouldn’t bet either way, But right now it doesn’t look good for snow.  The surface temperatures that the models are forecasting are well above freezing from Saturday night until Sunday afternoon.  We call these numbers MOS (Model Output Statistics).  It sounds more complicated than it is.  Anyway, they are predicting highs in the 50s.  This is almost looking unnaturally warm when you consider that we’ll see mostly cloudy skies.  They do agree that an area of low pressure will form offshore in the morning. This is expected to bring a few showers right along the coast.  Mostly for North Carolina.  The winds are supposed to be out of the Southwest.  However, If that first low strengthens more/quicker, then that could change the wind direction and possibly the temperatures.  Late in the morning a cold front will move in from the west.  This should dominate the winds.  Scattered showers will form along the front.  In the early afternoon the model thicknesses are very low.  (remember the lower the thickness the colder the layers above the surface).  I just pulled out Bufkit.  That’s a program that produces a forecast sounding based off of the models that I talk about.  They show a significant layer above freezing.  Up to about 3000ft.  The GFS has a brief shot of snow as the upper level low comes in during the afternoon behind the cold front.  That’s when it drops the freezing level to below 2000ft.  But that’s also when the dry air moves in. 

So I’m thinking this:  We’ll have a line of scattered rain showers with a brief mix at the end of rain and snow.  Maybe a brief mix inland at the start.  This will probably be north of the metro, but I can tweak that detail later.  No big deal, but it is fun to watch the details.  that’s why I’m a meteorologist.  Here is a pic from our computer model at 7am.  You can see that it has mostly rain with a little mix west of Hampton Roads.   It turns this mostly into showers as it moves overhead.  I’ll update any changes tomorrow.