Winter officially arrives at 4:21 a.m. on Saturday, and Mother Nature is not wasting any time.
We’re getting a robust influx of frigid arctic air that’s going to take temperatures way down and ramp up a biting northwest wind. Plus, Central Park could see its first measurable snowfall of the season.
The last time Central Park had measurable snow on the Winter Solstice was over 15 years ago in 2008. It wasn’t much, only 0.2 inches, but we could be looking at a similar dusting of snow this year. It’ll be festive, but nothing like the first day of Winter in 1959, when Central Park recorded more than 10 inches of snow.
A quick-moving clipper system comes through the tri-state overnight Friday into Saturday. There is not a ton of moisture with this system, so no one is getting Earth-shattering snow totals, but we will see totals on the order of 1 to 3 inches, especially a bit further inland where temperatures will spend more time below freezing.
For the areas closer to the coasts, temperatures will be just hitting freezing, if not staying slightly above, as the clipper moves through. This will make it harder for the snow to stick and accumulate.
As such, we expect snow totals to remain under an inch in those areas.
Anything that does stick will be sticking around for a bit — because once we fall below freezing, we struggle to get back above it for a couple of days.
Coming behind Saturday morning’s clipper is a blast of air straight from Canada. That’ll knock temperatures down through the afternoon on Saturday, leaving us with air temperatures in the teens by Sunday morning.
But it’s not just the cold, dry, arctic air alone we’ll be dealing with, it’s the gusty northwest winds as well.
The winds ramp up on Saturday, gusting around 25-35 mph. That’s enough to keep temperatures feeling like the 20s and teens all day.
Winds ease just a hair heading into Sunday morning, but it does not take much to make the brutal cold even worse. Sunday morning’s temperatures in the city will get down to around 18 degrees; factor in the wind chills and you’ve got a single-digit feel. Parts of the Hudson Valley and New Jersey could even experience sub-zero wind chills.
As bad as Sunday morning will feel, it is still not where our temperatures bottom out. That comes Monday morning, when Central Park is expected to drop down to 15 degrees. So far in 2024, the absolute coldest temperature we’ve seen at Central Park has been 17 degrees, all the way back in January. So our coldest morning of the entire year will be on Monday.
Beyond Monday’s deep freeze, temperatures gradually tick back up. Highs climb back into the 40s by the end of next week, but before another low-pressure system comes our way on Christmas Eve.
We’ll have to keep an eye on timing and temperatures, but if everything aligns, parts of our area could be in for another dusting of snow. And just in time for the holidays.
