The highest wind gust I was able to find occurred a few hours ago in Washington, DC with the anemometer clocking a 54 mph wind speed. Surface winds are expected to continue increasing as the night progresses, and a few models pump out wind gusts topping 70 mph.

As the stiff northwesterly winds continue, and radiational heating is lost, surface temperatures will dip into the mid 20s-lower 30s overnight. Current Doppler radar images from Sterling, VA (the Warning Forecast Office for the Greater DC area) reveal a fairly elongated band of precipitation extending from north central Maryland, southward into Charlottesville at this hour. With temperatures falling at their current rates, there is a high likelihood that any precip currently falling as showers turns into snow within the next 1-3 hours.

Any snowfall accumulations are expected to remain below an inch, except out in the mountains, where 2-4 inches of snowfall is expected by Sunday morning.

There's a New F-Scale on the block:
Back in the early 1970s, Dr. Tetsuya Theodore Fujita developed a tornado rating system based on structural damage, at the University of Chicago. This rating system became known as the "F-scale," or "Fujita-Scale" and became a widely accepted damage indicator for the next 35 years.

However, beginning in February of this year, the "old" F-Scale will be replaced by a new "Enhanced" F-Scale that significantly lowers the wind thresholds of all 6 of the F-scale categories.

Below are the previous, and new F-scale rating systems as per the Storm Prediction Center's website:

SCALE	WIND ESTIMATE *** (MPH)
F0	<>
F1	73-112
F2	113-157
F3	158-206
F4	207-260
F5	261-318

SCALE	WIND ESTIMATE *** (MPH)
F0	65-85
F1	86-110
F2	110-135
F3	136-165
F4	166-200
F5	Over 200

Image above right: Dr. Fujita, known as Mr. Tornado, was involved in extensive tornado surveys and studies. He invented the F-scale for measuring tornado damage. (Photograph from the University of Chicago Archive.)