Final weekend of March will make the East shiver
By Nick Wiltgen and Chris Dolce and Jon Erdman, Weather Channel
The latest chapter of this up-and-down temperature story will have you grabbing your coat again in many eastern cities this weekend. This is due to a sharp dip in the jet stream that will force cold air from Canada all the way into the Deep South.
Saturday morning lows dipped into the teens into the mountains of southern West Virginia. Wheeling, West Virginia shattered their previous daily record low, plunging into the middle teens. At least one location in northern Alabama dipped into the upper 20s. Several locations in Michigan's Upper Peninsula plunged below zero, including Marquette and Houghton/Hancock.
Freeze warnings have been issued in parts of the Deep South from northern Mississippi, Alabama and Middle Georgia into the Carolinas and Tennessee Sunday morning.
If you reside in these regions and have already staged your houseplants outside, you will need to either bring them back inside or cover them in order to protect the plants from the potential killing freeze. The overnight temperatures are also dangerous for sensitive garden plants like avocados, citrus trees and tomatoes, so take precautions with any of these that have been moved or planted outside.
Below is a look at just how cold it will get this weekend.
CURRENT MAPS: Temperatures, Wind Chills, Winds)
Forecast
Saturday: Highs will be 10 to 25 degrees below average from the Southeast, including northern Florida, to parts of the Ohio Valley, Great Lakes and Northeast. Portions of the Great Lakes and Northeast will hold in the 20s or 30s. Some cities in the South such as Nashville, Tennessee, and Raleigh, North Carolina, may not rise out of the 40s. Atlanta's highs will likely hold in the 50s Saturday afternoon.
(CITIES: AtlantaPittsburghSyracuse)
Sunday: Lows will be 10 to 20 degrees below average in much of the East. A freeze is possible as far south as Tennessee, North Carolina, Middle Georgia and northern Alabama. Lows in the teens and 20s will be widespread in the Northeast. A few locations in the Southeast and Northeast will flirt with daily record lows on Sunday morning including (current record low is in parentheses):New York - JFK (26), Washington, D.C. - Dulles (20), Charlotte, North Carolina (26) and Macon, Georgia (30).
Highs won't be as cold, but will still be 5 to 10 degrees below average in parts of the East.
Since the jet stream dip is transient and will not stay locked in across the East, the cold air will quickly push out for the start of next week.
On Monday and Tuesday, most areas east of the Mississippi River will see temperatures within a few degrees of average for the final few days of March.
(MORE: 10-Day Forecast)
Roller Coaster Temperature Recap
For portions of the East, spring's changeable temperatures were on full display this week.
On Monday, record cold daily highs were set in Montpelier, Vermont (19), and Watertown, New York (21), among other locations. Bangor, Maine (4 degrees), and Binghamton, New York (10), each tied a daily record low Tuesday.
Then, milder air moved in for midweek. Highs on Thursday reached into the middle 70s in Washington, D.C., while Philadelphia warmed into the 60s. Farther north, Boston topped out in the middle 50s. That said, these more comfortable temperatures were accompanied by rain and clouds.
A Record Cold February-March?
Several cities in the Northeast are now flirting with a record cold February through March period.
Through March 23, Hartford, Connecticut, Worcester, Massachusetts, and Providence, Rhode Island were crushing their current record coldest February through March periods, as noted by a tweet Tuesday from the National Weather Service forecast office in Taunton, Massachusetts.
If the current trends hold, Boston would have its coldest February through March period in 130 years, when Grover Cleveland began his first term as President.
Similarly, New York's JFK and LaGuardia Airports, as well as Bridgeport, Connecticut, would also set their record coldest February through March, if the trend continues through the end of the month.
Records for those three locations date to the mid- to late 1940s. Impressively, this February through March may be colder at both LaGuardia Airport and Bridgeport, Connecticut, than the infamously cold late winter/early spring of 1978, according to the NWS forecast office in Upton, New York.
With a longer period of record dating to 1869, this would only be the fifth coldest February through March in New York City's Central Park.
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