It's going to be a cold day in the Pittsburgh area with a chance of snow showers
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- The cold is setting up shop right here in Western Pennsylvania along with a chance of snow showers today.
Any Alert Days Ahead? Today and Wednesday are FAWDs due to morning wind chill values
Aware: Next week, we could see temperatures fall below 0° on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings.
Buoyed by several inches of snow on the ground, temperatures have tumbled from yesterday's high of 35°. Highs today will be in the low 20s but one of the big stories is just how low wind chills are set to go for the morning hours. I have most communities, including Pittsburgh, seeing wind chills bottoming out between 0° to -5°.
Temperatures by themselves will dip to around 11 degrees in Pittsburgh, with winds of around 10mph coming in out of the west. You are going to want to bundle up. Temperatures and wind chills should be just as frigid on Tuesday morning as well.
On top of the cold today, accumulating snow is also expected to move in as a mid-level 'clipper' low sweeps through. Snow is expected to fall between 2 p.m. to 6 p.m., with snow totals of less than an inch (and probably less than a half inch) expected widespread across our area. Higher totals will occur north of I-80. While it doesn't look widespread, there will be communities near Erie that will see more than 6 inches of snow falling today. Just a heads up if you're thinking about heading in that direction. Some intense snow squalls are also expected which will make travelling tough in some spots.
Looking ahead, more snow is expected to move through on Thursday. In most places, Thursday's snow totals will be close to around 2". The usual suspects of westward-facing slopes of the Ridges and Laurel Highlands along with parts of Indiana and Armstrong counties having higher snow totals. We see a brief warm-up heading into the weekend with Friday highs hitting the upper 30s. Rain and snow are expected to fall throughout the day on Saturday, wrapping up on Sunday morning.
Saturday highs are expected to be near 40 degrees with strong southwesterly winds at the surface. We will then see rapidly dropping temperatures as rain changes over to snow. I think the snow totals right now that model data is pumping out are way too aggressive but we will talk about snow totals a little closer to the weekend.
Finally just want to mention that some of the coldest air we've seen here locally in years will descend on us for the middle of next week. There's a chance for temperatures to dip below 0°. I don't think it will happen in Pittsburgh but it will be close.
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