Washington, D.C. has yet to “officially” receive a trace of snow this season (although a few flakes were noted in the region on Jan. 4) and has a chance to finally get on the scoreboard Tuesday afternoon into the early evening.
These snow and rain showers will be hit or miss, meaning some areas may not receive any precipitation.
Aside from setting a more wintry mood and serving as a topic of conversation, these flakes are likely to have little impact on the region.
As temperatures ahead of the front ascend to 40-45 degrees Tuesday afternoon, snow will initially melt on contact with the ground. Where temperatures manage to fall to near freezing when the snow is falling, unlikely except in our coldest areas (western Loudoun and northern Frederick counties), a quick dusting is possible.
The National Weather Service assigns just a 25 percent probability of anyone in the D.C. region collecting more than 0.1 inches of snow. And it says there is a zero percent chance of more than an inch, even in Loudoun and Frederick counties.
“This is not a system that is likely to produce much accumulating snow because 1) the lowest surface pressure will be to our north so our winds will have a westerly component which leads to drying as the air flows over the mountains and 2) temperatures will start out above freezing,” says Wes Junker, Capital Weather Gang’s winter weather expert.
The cold air following the front’s wake is, frankly, a bigger story than the snow chance. Wind chills Wednesday morning drop into the single digits while highs Wednesday afternoon probably remain below freezing.
In any normal winter, when we would have received accumulating snow by now, I would not even bother preparing a blog post like this. But, for the legions of snow lovers (among which I include myself), you know what they say about desperate times…
