Blog: Happy Friday! The cold has returned

Posted: Jan 17, 2020 / 08:57 AM EST

Updated: Jan 17, 2020 / 02:57 PM EST

Well it’s been some time, but cold air has finally returned to the region. Over the last couple of weeks most of the temps have been in the 50s and 60s. There were even a couple of days in the 70s. Yesterday, we hit 65 degrees, but then temps cooled down to the 50s during the late afternoon. A cold front moved through the area, but temps dropped slowly. By this morning they dropped all the way down to the low-mid 30s. Wind chills were in the 20s. That cold front has now dropped as far south as Florida. High pressure is edging in from the west.

We’ll have a strong north wind today. Gusts will be up to 30mph near the shore with gusts between 15-25mph inland. Despite a good amount of sunshine our high temps will only manage the upper 30s to low 40s this afternoon. That will be a shock to the system, but it is welcome. This cold air will:

Knock down the mosquitoes that have been popping out lately.
Stop a lot of the buds and blooms from sprouting too early.
Stop the grass from growing again. “It’s too early to cut grass!”
Make it feel like the season for a while.

We’ll cloud up tonight with lows in the 20s. It will be in the 30s near the shore. Then tomorrow we’ll have lots of clouds, but we’ll also have a southerly wind. This should allow high temps to reach the low 50s.

The wind could gust to 25mph at times. There may be some flurries near the Northern Neck in the morning Saturday. This shouldn’t be much though as the air is very dry. Most of Saturday will be dry with only some clouds. However, there will be some scattered rain showers arriving later in the day. It will be too warm here for any wintry weather. However, there will be some snow up towards the D.C. metro. There may be a brief mix of some sleet pellets or wet snowflakes (with the rain) as close as the Northern Neck, but we’ll see.