Cold air is heading to the North Central states on Wednesday night and could cause hazardous travel for those driving on highways as far south as western Pennsylvania.
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00:00Take a look at the upper air and here it comes.
00:02That piece of energy is going to, in a sense, help drag that cold air southward here.
00:08And by the time we get in the Wednesday morning, we have an upper level low west of James Bay
00:12or south and west of Hudson Bay.
00:15And look where the lines are coming from.
00:17Follow the stream flow from Minneapolis all the way up into the northwestern territories
00:22or the Yukon Territory as well.
00:25Here we go again.
00:26All right, with that, I want to bring in our AccuWeather chief meteorologist, Jonathan
00:30Porter.
00:31You know, John, again, we highlighted that there would be feet of snow downwind of the
00:35lakes.
00:36And now we're dealing with that another Arctic air mass, which is going to pose some problems.
00:42Let's time it as we go forward.
00:44Yeah, this could be another noticeable push of Arctic air.
00:49And watch into the northern plains here as we make our way through Wednesday afternoon
00:55and then surging across the Great Lakes.
00:57And Bernie, once again, this is going to be accompanied by a band of heavier snow showers
01:02and snow squalls.
01:03And then that's going to blast into the interior northeast here as we head through the day
01:07on Thursday, eventually off the East Coast by late Thursday night.
01:12Yeah, typically you really have to worry about these Arctic fronts here, John.
01:15Now, I don't think it's a widespread area, but we are concerned Wednesday night into
01:20Thursday morning with that area in red that we could have some major problems.
01:25And we've seen this kind of setup before, and this can really, really cause some problems.
01:31This is the kind of setup that can result in some highway chaos at times because these
01:36snow squalls can happen and they can quickly reduce visibility.
01:40You could be driving along at 60 or 65 miles per hour like nothing's going on.
01:45And then all of a sudden you encounter one of those snow squalls and the visibility goes
01:49to near zero.
01:50And that's when we can sometimes have a risk for those multi-vehicle accidents.
01:55And especially, Bernie, this is the piece that we're concerned about.
01:57Look at this rapid temperature drop.
01:59Those temperatures could be above freezing during the day on Wednesday and then quickly
02:04fall.
02:05That creates a layer of ice underneath any snow that accumulates.
02:09So the corridor from the New York State Thruway from Syracuse toward Buffalo, Erie, Cleveland,
02:15Detroit down toward western Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh.
02:18Look out.
02:19Yeah.
02:20And then we bring in the cold behind it, John, and I'll tell you what, the difference with
02:23this cold air mass, it's just as cold, if not colder, than its predecessor.
02:27It's not going to last all that long, but more in a second.
02:30But take a look at your actual forecast as we go through our Thursday across the Midwest,
02:34Chicago in the 20s, Minneapolis in the teens.
02:37Then we take you to the East Coast.
02:39It doesn't quite get to the I-95 corridor until later in the day.
02:43Right.
02:44But the interior, certainly look at that, 29 to Pittsburgh, 27 to Columbus, Ohio.
02:48And it's not a long-lasting cold.
02:50Take a look at this, John.
02:51Let's take you out to Chicago.
02:53It's only, it's in and then it's out.
02:55I look at the moderation here, 37 on Saturday and 46 by Sunday.
03:00So a brief shot of impactful frigid air.
03:03And then in New York City, there we go.
03:05There's your coldest air Friday and the Saturday.
03:09And then it's out.
03:10And the risk for some rain here by the time we get to Monday, moderation of the temperature
03:14by then.
03:15All right.
03:16That's the Chief Meteorologist Jonathan Porter.
03:18John, thanks for joining us here on AccuWeather Early.