Brace yourself, Baltimore.
After highs of 53 degrees Monday and 59 degrees Tuesday, it’s about to get cold this week.
Tuesday night is expected to be 42 degrees and rainy, with wind gusts as high as 20 mph, according to the National Weather Service. Temperatures could rise by as few as six degrees for a partly sunny, 48-degree high Wednesday, according to the National Weather Service.
That could be the warmest it gets for the rest of the week. The area is unlikely to break single-digit cold temperature records, but Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights are all expected to dip below freezing.
While there’s only about a 30 percent chance of any wintry precipitation, all of those days are expected to be seasonably frigid.
“It’s nothing brutally cold or especially unusual for this time of year,” said Andrew Snyder, a meteorologist based at the National Weather Service office in Sterling, Va. “The game-changer, so to speak, is a cold front Tuesday night. But really the core of the cold air isn’t going to arrive over the area until more toward Friday.”
The weather service forecasts a high near 46 degrees Thursday, 40 degrees Friday, and temperatures in the 30s Saturday and Sunday, with lows in the 20s Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights.
While it’s cold enough, any snow is unlikely, unless winter storms off the Atlantic coast move toward the shore Friday or Friday night, Snyder said.
“There are chances of snow towards the end of the week, but we’re talking about a 30 percent chance or less,” he said. “There could be some opportunities for snow showers or flurries. But we’re not looking at the potential for anything significant at this time, it’s just something to keep an eye on as we get closer.”
Anyone attending Thursday night’s Monument Lighting ceremony at the Washington Monument in Mount Vernon should bundle up, Snyder said.
“Temperatures are going to be falling through the 30s during that time, but it’s going to be dry so as long as people dress warmly they should be fine,” he said.
