This week will start off pretty warm with temperatures approaching 60° on Monday and in the low to mid 50s on Tuesday. The wintry mix we mentioned over the weekend is still a possibility as temperatures quickly cool down Wednesday. There are also signals for potential snow next week, but we’ll get to that if it still looks like a threat later this week.
The National Weather Service (NWS) has issued an elevated ice accumulation threat for parts of the state on Wednesday/Wednesday night, including northern Maryland all the way down to parts of Montgomery and Howard counties. Other parts of the DC Metro area are in the ‘limited’ ice accumulation risk zone.
The ‘elevated’ risk means, “up to one quarter inch of ice accumulation will create dangerous travel conditions and likely result in power outages.” while the ‘limited’ risk means, “a light glaze of ice could cause hazardous travel conditions on bridges, overpasses, and untreated or secondary roads.”
Per the NWS forecaster’s discussion, “this event looks to be a wintry mix across the bulk of the area. Locations further north and east have the best chance of seeing some snow at onset, but any snow accumulations should be minimal (under an inch) before warmer air starts to move in aloft and change precipitation types over the sleet and freezing rain. Much of the event may end up being sleet and freezing rain to the northwest of I-95/north of I-66/US-50, although some mixing with plain rain may be possible by later Wednesday night. More mixing with plain rain may be possible to the southeast of I-95, but again, uncertainty exists at this point regarding precipitation types. While the system doesn`t look to be a major ice storm, there may be impactful amounts of ice accretion.”
As of now, it looks like any possible winter weather would not affect schools on Wednesday with impacts later in the day. One thing to monitor would be how long the cold sticks around and if any icy conditions will linger into the morning commute Thursday.