An anomalously sharp jet stream dip for late March will bring cold weather to our area again this weekend, especially noticeable on Saturday.  Low pressure developing off the coast, will be too far east to affect us.

For Saturday, the high pressure system moving in with this upper trough will bring dry, breezy conditions, but instability clouds will result in partly/cloudy partly sunny skies.   MOS  are predicting temps to be about 45, but I’m thinking it will be colder,  in the lower 40s.  (Average high is about 57 degrees.)

Update Fri PM: Temps will be colder, about 40, and it will be windy on Saturday.

Sunny skies for Sunday, less wind and a bit milder, but still below average.  Winds swing around to the SW late in the day.  Highs will still be about 46.

Despite the warm front that moves through Wednesday night and the warm and wet day expected Thursday, the models have a very deep upper air trough developing and moving through for Friday through at least the weekend. The surface weather map for Saturday looks like something you would expect to see in January.

Expect very cold weather for this weekend, despite very bright, sunny late March skies.

Lucky for us, the trough will be in a position that keeps any low pressure development off the coastline.  At least, that’s what it looks like right now.

A few weeks ago, I gave a nod to the accuracy of Channel 6 weather forecasts and that Adam Joseph seems to know what he’s talking about without the hype.  Now, if only Cecily Tynan could get rid of the word “tracking” in every other one of her sentences.

The National Weather Service is actually excellent with their forecasts, but unfortunately, the media often doesn’t fully communicate their forecast, or they reduce it in the newspaper to an image of a cloud or the sun. The Mt Holly NWS Twitter feed is very good and people should follow them.

On the other side of TV weather land is Kathy Orr and Kate Bilo of Channel 3 and KYW.  It’ my opinion that their forecasts are off-target and superficial, resulting in communication inaccuracies.   They seem to miss the forecast nuances and they seem to avoid the uncertainties. Last Thursday, they were still saying the snow would turn to rain in PHL on Friday afternoon.   Their forecast high temperature was 39.   That was not going to happen and that should have been clear by their Thursday evening forecast.

Yesterday, in the evening forecast, Kathy Orr mentioned  temperatures in the 70s.  What is she talking about???

Then there’s Glenn Schwartz on Channel 10.  In my opinion, there’s too much Schadenfreude about bad weather.   He knows his stuff, but the style gets in the way of the message. Why does he chuckle when describing coming bad weather?

And finally, it would be more credible to viewers, when a forecast is wrong, for these same forecasters to acknowledge the forecast error and explain why it happened. It would increase their credibility.  Something to consider.

Sunny skies today will allow for significant melting of snow.  High temp about 50.  A cold front moves through early evening, accompanied by clouds, possible a light scattered shower.

Cold high pressure builds in for Sunday.  Despite it being Spring, it will be cold and windy.  High temperature will be about 42 despite mostly sunny skies.