Philadelphia Weather Outlook

THIS WEEK’S WEATHER

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Friday Forecast Update

Posted Thursday 02/01/24 @ 8:35 PM — Thursday’s cloud forecast was again less than stellar.

As for Friday, the cold front is on scheduled to pass through about 3AM tonight with showers. About 0.25 inches of rain will fall with this frontal passage.

Following the cold front, cloudiness and even some widely scattered sprinkles will remain through Friday morning and it looks like considerable cloudiness will remain for much of the afternoon. This is due to an upper trough and an upper jet streak just to our west, resulting in vertical upward motion.

The weekend still looks to be sunny with high temps a few degrees above seasonal averages.

As for Groundhog day, what a crazy annual ritual! Forget about the groundhog’s forecasting technique…I don’t understand the the entire process—

• Does the groundhog have to see his shadow? How do we know he see’s his shadow?
• Or do we have to see that the groundhog see’s his shadow?
• Or do we have to see that the groundhog has a shadow?
• Groundhogs are so low to the ground. Don’t they always have a shadow?

Well, enough of that.

Thursday Update

Posted Thursday 02/01/24 @ 9:12 AM — One of the toughest forecasting challenges is predicting cloud cover and in the past two weeks, it’s been seemingly more difficult.

When I posted the forecast last night, I knew there were large differences in the forecast cloudiness between the models. I went with the ensemble forecasts (HREF) and the NBM.

Even though there is much more cloudiness right now than I had expected, and the HREF is showing the clouds now, it still forecasts the clouds to be moving out later this morning. I guess we’ll see.

HREF clouds—

02-01-24 06z HREF forecast cloud cover in percentage. (darker = greater cloud cover) (Click on image for a larger view.)
Thursday Friday Update

Posted Wednesday 01/31/24 @ 7:44 PM —The clouds we had Wednesday will move out for Thursday morning and much of the afternoon. Thursday will be partly to mostly sunny and mild for February (48-50º) Clouds in advance of a cold front approaching from the north will move in during the late afternoon and showers associated with the front will move through about 3 AM Friday—

01-31-24 12z ECMWF forecast for 1 AM Friday morning. A cold front moving through our area about that time with showers. (Click on image for a larger view.)

Friday may dry out following the cold front, but the upper trough will move through and we’ll have plenty of clouds. (Maybe a few sprinkles). Highs in the mid 40s, still above seasonal averages.

Saturday looks sunny and near seasonable temps. (42-43º)
Sunday looks sunny and a bit milder.

Very mild weather has moved in the mid-section of the US. It’s not completely clear how much of that we’ll see, but the trend is for milder next week. No snow. Maybe even dry.