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Through tonight: Our slight chance of light, brief precipitation should end by midnight. Wind from the west-northwest continues with a few evening gusts near 50 mph possible. We may briefly experience late-night peak wind gusts easing down toward 25 mph, but overall it’s not much respite. Skies are partly cloudy and temperatures bottom out in the low to mid-30s.
View the current weather at The Washington Post.
Tomorrow (Monday): Not until late day to we fully eliminate the 50-mph gust potential from west-northwest winds. Any early clouds depart quickly, creating a sunny day. This allows temperatures to rise a bit, into the low to mid-50s, though wind chills may track nearly 10 degrees colder. Overnight, wind gusts gradually dip below 15 mph and skies stay clear. Low temperatures may range from the mid-30s to the low 40s.
See Molly Robey’s forecast that runs through midweek. Come chat tonight on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and X! Our 20-minute weekly Sunday Sunset Live Q&A will start at 7:11 p.m.
Vorticity causing our rain/snow showers
At the mid-level of the atmosphere, we have a noticeable whirl of instability moving through the area, which will clear out early tomorrow. Vorticity can be thought of as spinning eddies in the atmosphere, much like the whirls you’d see in streams or rivers. With this changing the overall stream of motion in the otherwise calmly flowing atmosphere, stirring can get going. When the sun shines — even briefly — it can be the icing on the cake, percolating the atmosphere and bubbling up warmer air from the ground into this otherwise untapped spin above us.
These ingredients can really get some lift going in the atmosphere! These disturbed areas often contain cooler air above us, so as clouds develop, precipitation can form too. Like today, the temperature differential between ground level and clouds can be amplified by vorticity, creating some frozen precipitation (graupel snow grains) even with temperatures around or slightly above 50 degrees!
See you tonight! We’ll dive into workweek weather during our weekly Sunday Sunset Live Q&A on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and X! Our 20-minute chat will start at 7:11 p.m.
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