Western Pennsylvania area wakes up to rain Monday, accumulating snow possible Wednesday
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) - The rain has arrived and will remain through noon in the Western Pennsylvania area.
Some drizzle and isolated showers are forecasted for the afternoon with cloudy skies. There will be some variability with winds with the one constant being a southerly direction. They start out of the southeast and eventually will change to the southwest. Look for rain totals between a half-inch to eight-tenths of an inch on Monday.
The area could see an additional fifth of an inch of rain Tuesday evening.
Highs on both Monday and Tuesday will be in the mid-50s. Skies will be cloudy on both days. Morning lows Monday morning dipped to near 40 degrees. Morning lows on Tuesday morning will hover near 50 degrees with the warm air in place.
Looking ahead, at some point on Monday, KDKA-TV will likely be issuing a First Alert Weather Day for Wednesday. Why not just do it now? Well, model data has not been consistent with the arrival of the cold air yet.
The Saturday model runs were showing dusting on the back end of the system. Sunday morning's model data showed around an inch of snow. Model data on Monday is hinting at Pittsburgh seeing potentially 3-to-5 inches of snow. Other areas are also all over the place with model output on snow totals.
While the trend is to add snow, the timing of this system and the cold air on the backside is going to be key. There is still a chance that the Pittsburgh area could see a mix of rain and snow with temperatures well above 32 degrees during the entire "snow" event.
We will wait and get a bit more clarity before firing off a First Alert Weather Day.
The rest of the week is looking cold with falling temperatures Wednesday and Thursday. Lows bottom out on Friday morning with temperatures dipping to nearly 10 degrees and wind chills down around 5 degrees.
