Spring-like to a wintry this week for Columbus area

QUICK WEATHER FORECAST:

• Tonight: Mixed clouds, few early sprinkles, warm, low 52
• Tuesday: Morning rain, mostly cloudy, high 63
• Wednesday: Showers & breezy, high 59
• Thursday: Wet wintry mix, quite windy, cold, high 37
• Friday: Light mix, breezy, still chilly, high 43

FORECAST DISCUSSION:

Good Monday Evening,

It has been another very warm day, with temps running about 10-15 degrees above normal for this time of the year. We have had a few showers working through our area to the north this evening, and will see very warm temps continuing tonight. In fact, lows tonight will generally be a degree or two above our normal afternoon highs for this time of the year in the lower 50s.

Tuesday will be another very warm day, but one that has better chances of rain, especially in the morning hours and tapering down by lunch and after. Highs will still top into the lower 60s on Tuesday. Wednesday will see another round of showers with a strong cold front that will push through. Highs should top in the upper 50s still on Wednesday ahead of the front.

The fact that we will have a strong south-southeast flow ahead of the front, temps will be warm, but the winds will be strong after the front passes and the trailing low starts to move closer. This low will greatly increase winds Wednesday night and into the day on Thursday as temps will fall to the lower to middle 30s Thursday morning. As a note, this is a "normal" start to the day on Thursday, but with the low spinning around just to our north, and then sagging south, it will set us up for a cold day on Thursday.

In fact, highs Thursday will likely occur around midnight near 40, but never get out of the 30s during the daytime hours, and with the strong gusty winds, will likely feel like they are in the 20s all day long. By far, this will be our first taste of true late fall/early winter air on Thursday. On top of that, we will have wrap around moisture falling, in the form of cold rain, and wet snow mixed in on Thursday.

At this point, it appears that any snow that does fall, will be on the lighter (accumulation) side as we will have rain mixed in as well. This will make for wet snow mixed, and falling on a ground that is still quite warm, as temps in Columbus have barely touched freezing for a few hours so far this fall, and have been generally running 20-35 degrees above freezing recently. This would favor any snowfall to generally have a brief chance of sticking to grassy areas, but again with warm surface temps and rain mixed in, slush would be the likely outcome on the ground, with road surfaces wet.

Winds will remain an issue from Wednesday through Friday, as gusts will be the 30+mph range during this time, and could gust into the 40s (mph) at times from Wednesday night and through Thursday, with winds lightening a bit on Friday. Temps will climb back to the low to mid 40s on Friday, with a light mix, changing to light cold rain showers. Saturday expect some early morning light cold rain showers as the system departs. Highs on Saturday will be in the middle 40s.

We will see partly sunny skies on Sunday with highs in the mid to upper 40s. Rain showers will return late on Monday with highs back near 50.

** For the record ** Historically speaking in Columbus, our average first date of measurable snowfall, since record keeping started, has been November 21st, which is also the date on Thursday. So if we do end up with 0.1" or more of snow, this would track completely with what has historically happened in Columbus for the first snow.

-Dave