It's beginning to look a lot like (mid)winter

We’re closing out a wintry week in the same way it started, with more snow and cold. Extreme early-season chill in the Northeast and Great Lakes region will give way to only moderately colder than typical temperatures this weekend. But the next shot out of the northern is already eying its move.

Weather watch

Mid-Atlantic snow. Snowflakes are fluttering outside my window, and the roads are covered in salt, which means winter has officially arrived and relatively early compared to recent times. Up to 3 or 4 inches has been observed as of sunrise in the higher terrain of central Virginia into West Virginia, near 2 inches around Richmond, and about 1 inch is forecast for D.C. with more to the south.

Record chill. A number of record lows were clustered Thursday from South Dakota through Iowa and into Wisconsin. Waterloo in the northeast of Iowa reached minus-15 for a record. Fort Wayne, Indiana fell to 2, also a record. Additional records were set Friday morning from the southern Great Lakes region through New England, where temperatures fell to the single digits above and below zero.

Bigly atmospheric river/s. Three atmospheric rivers are forecast to hit the Pacific Northwest over the next 5-7 days. They’re expected to bring widespread rainfall totals of 3 to 6-plus inches to Washington and Oregon with some spots perhaps seeing 10 or more inches. There’s a strong suggestion of at least Category 4 levels on a 1-5 scale with the American model suggesting potential for a Category 5 event.

More cold and snow ahead. It’s already feeling old to this guy but the cold and storm chances in the eastern U.S. seem poised to keep on going. The next batch of major cold will drop southeast from southern Canada and the northern Plains this weekend to the East Coast early in the work week. There’s some hint the unusual chill may relent a bit around midmonth — given goings on in the upper atmosphere, and with the polar vortex, any break seemingly wouldn’t last long.

Lightning links

Watch: Monstrous dust storm swallows Australian miners bringing hour of lightning and rain. (Olivia Stephens, FOX Weather)

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Weekday morning newsletter by a journalist/forecaster. Connecting weather and climate change dots while occasionally stirring the pot.

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