Cold Front to Erase Eastern Warmth Tonight and Monday

By Brian Edwards, Meteorologist

January 13,2013; 6:30PM,EST

The mild to warm temperatures across the mid-Atlantic and Northeast will be erased by a cold front which will move across the area tonight into Monday.
Temperatures remain well above normal across much of the East from Rochester and Bradford through Pittsburgh and Charleston. The mild weather extends up into New England as well but temperatures are a bit subdued thanks to leftover dense fog in place.
Very nice conditions are found in the Southeast with widespread 80s in Florida and 70s in the remainder of the Gulf states.
This warm weather is being caused by a surge of gulf air, thanks to southerly winds around high pressure centered off the East Coast.
The southerly winds are also bringing up abundant moisture, which is leading to the formation of dense fog over areas of the mid-Atlantic and New England with snow cover on the ground.

Change is on the way, however, as a cold front which will bring heavy thunderstorms to parts of the Tennessee Valley and Gulf Coast will swing through the mid-Atlantic and Northeast tonight into Monday.

Precipitation will accompany the front for many areas with rain falling overnight tonight from Albany and Buffalo, N.Y. through State College, Pa. down into the western Carolinas.
Rain will make it into the big cities of the I-95 corridor such as Boston, New York City, and Philadelphia by Monday morning, but it will have lost a lot of its punch.

Most of the I-95 cities will likely pick up under a tenth of an inch of rainfall, which won't lead to too many slow downs when it comes to the Monday morning commute.
The big story will be the temperature drop following the frontal passage. Most areas will fall 15 to as much as 30 degrees behind the front, which would send temperatures much closer to normal January levels.
Below is a list of high temperature trends over the next few days to show the dramatic change to colder:

City	Sun.	Mon.	Tues.
Cleveland, Ohio

64
31
31


Buffalo, N.Y.
65
35
33


New York, N.Y.
49
58
43


Boston, Mass.
50
55
40


Pittsburgh, Pa.
66
41
38




The aforementioned frontal boundary will stall across the southern mid-Atlantic Monday into Tuesday bringing a good deal of rain to southern Virginia and parts of the Carolinas.
This will slow the progress of the colder air into the Southeast, but by Tuesday, temperatures will struggle to get out of the 40s as far south as Raleigh, Charlotte, and Norfolk.

Check back with AccuWeather.com over the next few days as we monitor the progress of a much colder airmass. Additional shots of cold air are expected later this week into the weekend, which will allow for some arctic air to move into the northern tier of the country.