A Lot to Talk About

Temperatures and winds will be the major issues to deal with over the next 24 hours. Highs will drop from the 40s into the teens tonight. That has prompted many advisories and warnings. A wind advisory for today with gusty winds of up to 45 mph and a winter weather advisory for tonight. That's just another way of saying that temperatures will drop from the 40s to teens in very short order. Here is a look at what we call the qpf or quantitative precipitation forecast.
It looks like most of the precipitation will fall as rain but we could see a quick inch of snow as the temperatures drop overnight, just in time to make things a little slick tomorrow morning.What a day it will be with highs in the upper 40s. But that's just the beginning of a rough next 24 hours. A bitter cold weather system is just out to our west
So now its time to get a bit philosophical. One of the first things you learn about in meteorology 101 is how the Earth is the great equalizer. The Earths atmosphere is constantly striving to have equal pressure throughout it's atmosphere. Because of winds and other factors like changes in topography of land masses equal pressure can never be achieved. So when the pressure drops or rises significantly, you will see gusty winds. Today is a great example of this process. Take a look at how tightly packed these isobars are on this map.