Temperatures today made it into the mid 60s in most locations under a thick canopy of low and mid level clouds associated with a fairly large upper level disturbance rotating around the upper Midwest. Presently, a few very light and patchy areas of showers are present the eastern portion of Maryland.

A warm front is currently developing along the tail end of a retreating cold front from Tennessee, arching back towards eastern Oklahoma. It is here that a powerful surface cyclone (surface low) will develop in tandem with this warm front over the next 12-24 hours-and eventually track towards the east coast by Midweek.

Tonight: Clouds will hang tough through the night as mid level moisture streams into the region from the southwest. As a result, temperatures will have a hard time falling below the 50 degree mark, although there may be a few locations in northern MD that touch 48-49 early tomorrow morning. A 30-50% chance of showers will develop after midnight.

Tomorrow: By mid morning, a warm front will have moved north of the region, taking a large chunk of the precipitation chances with it. As the front clears the region, there may be a few locations that break out of the cloud deck for a short period during the afternoon. Through the day expect something like a 20-40% chance of showers depending on your location.

Wednesday: The real fun stuff arrives during the day Wednesday in the form of a strong cold front. Precip chances will increase rapidly through the late morning hours, and I can't rule out the possibility of a few thunderstorms embedded in the larger rainshowers line during the afternoon.

The cold front clears the region by 7-9 PM Wednesday, and temperatures will begin a quick retreat into the upper 30s/lower 40s. Areas of western MD and eastern WV have a chance of seeing some snow flakes fly Wednesday night and into Thursday morning as cold Canadian air plunges southward into the Mid Atlantic.

Talkin' Tropics:
Yes, I know it's the middle of November, and in "normal" years we wouldn't be talking about tropical entities at this time. But as we have seen over the past several months, this is nothing like a "normal" hurricane season.

Tropical depression 27-as noted before-is still spinning around just west of the Leeward Islands. This system is expected to become tropical storm Gamma sometime tonight or tomorrow.

Top Image courtesy of NCEP/HPC
Image at right courtesy of the NHC.

Extended Outlook:
After this week's frontal passage, surface temperatures take a decent-sized dip below normal (average highs are just around 60, I might add) through the end of the week, and likely into the Thanksgiving weekend. For mid-longer ranger prognostications, I like to employ the well performing European Model (ECMWF).

The above image is the European Model's analysis of the day 7-10 mean 500mb Geopotential height field. (Green/Blue colors are lower heights-->lower temps). Notice the mid level trough depicted in the east, and the two ridges in the West Coast, and central Atlantic.

Given the depth of this trough, and its position, it appears locations along the Eastern Seaboard will remain below average through the Thanksgiving weekend and possibly beyond. Precipitation chances I'm not so sure about, but if a storm does develop, the primary form of precip would be rain (heights, although below normal, are still too high to support snow aggregation).