The calendar says March, but we woke up with February feels across the Twin Tiers with wind chills below 0. This begs the question as Winter is wrapping up, "When will the warmth appear across the region?" Unfortunately the warmth will not make a prolonged appearance across the Twin Tiers over the next 5 days, but there is hope early next week. Before we talk about early next week, let's talk about the reasoning behind we are so cold now and over the next few days. 

Our recent cold snap can again be attributed to the polar Vortex. Another small lobe of the Polar Vortex has broken off from the main circulation and found its way across the Northeast United States. Polar Vortex will sit to our northeast over the next several days and continuously pump in chilly air, with the exception of Wednesday. Tomorrow, Polar Vortex will move a bit to the northeast, and allow a brief push of milder air before the vortex retrogrades, or moves backwards for the remainder of the week. This will cause the chilly conditions to move back into the Twin Tiers through the weekend before it finally escapes late this weekend. When Polar Vortex moves out, it will open the door for warmer weather to move back into the Northeast.

Models are showing this towards the end of the weekend and into early next week. A building ridge this weekend, over the Central US, will begin to move east and push temperatures above average. Uncertainty does remain however. If Polar Vortex decides to linger over Eastern Canada a bit longer, than the warming trend will be delayed. If models continue to show what they have been showing yesterday and this morning, than we may see high temperatures find their way into the 50s and possibly near 60 degrees! The next question is will it last though?

Uncertainty out in this time period (~2 weeks) is extremely high, but models are showing a cooler pattern to make another appearance towards the end of next week. This does not mean snow chances, but temperatures towards that time period may dip below average again. Our average high is around 40 degrees next week, so not too bad but still chilly. Uncertainty for that time period is extremely high, and we will continue to update you as we get closer!

-Alex