Chilly Christmas, followed by snow Monday for Columbus area

QUICK WEATHER FORECAST:

• Today: Partly sunny, some clearing later, chilly, high 15
• Monday: Sct’d snow showers, light accumulations, high 22
• Tuesday: Partly sunny, high 29
• Wednesday: Partly cloudy, high 40
• Thursday: Mostly cloudy, high 51

FORECAST DISCUSSION:

Good Sunday Morning,

Merry Christmas to all! Bundle up today again, as temps will be slightly warmer today, with less wind, so it will feel better than it has the last 2 days. Today will still be a top 5 coldest Christmas day in Columbus with a high near 15.

Wind chills this morning to start will be running from near 0 to -15°, so Wind Chill Advisories are in effect til midday today. Wind chills should climb just above zero this afternoon with partly sunny to partly cloudy skies.

The clearing in the skies will allow the temps to quickly fall to the single digits overnight tonight with lows in the city near 5, and a bit cooler outside of town with sub-zero wind chills, barely. Winds will not be strong overnight, generally around 5mph.

A quick moving clipper system will dive south toward our area on Monday. This will increase clouds pre-sunrise on Monday with the core of this system passing to our southwest, but should push through on Monday with snow showers expected.

Most of the area will end up with around an inch of fresh snow from this system. The highest totals will be further west and southwest, where 1-2″ of fresh snow is possible. Expect temps on Monday to reach into the lower 20s.

We will not cool much for Tuesday morning into the upper teens. Skies will remain partly sunny on Tuesday with highs in the upper 20s to near 30. We will see sunshine returning with warmer air on Wednesday. However, the sunshine will be generally wasted on melting snow and reflecting off the snow. So temps on Wednesday, while warmer, will only reach normal around 40.

We will see a more remarkable turnaround for Thursday into the New Year’s Weekend, with highs on Thursday into the lower 50s with more clouds. Friday rain showers will be possible with highs in the middle 50s. We should climb to the upper 50s with rain likely to start the weekend on Saturday.

-Dave