There are definitely some easy things and some hard things in the forecast for the next 7 days. Today's forecast is pretty easy. High pressure has slid a bit to the west. A weak cool front is dropping to our south. Regional Weather Map We'll have lots of sunshine today. We'll have a light north wind through the afternoon. High temps will be in the mid 40s. Forecast Temps Today Tomorrow the high will slide back east a bit. This will let the surface winds turn out of the southwest. We'll pull up some milder/more humid air for sure. Skies will be mostly cloudy. We'll have scattered rain showers in the morning. They will last until the early afternoon. Future Trak Saturday Morning Future Trak has the rain ending in the afternoon with some sunshine popping out. Future Trak Saturday Afternoon I do think the rain chances will taper off, but some other models suggest that there could still be some isolated rain showers through the late afternoon and evening. So I'm going to side with that forecast. It would be great if there is a little clearing because temps are going to warm to the low-mid 50s Saturday afternoon. Forecast Temps Saturday This will be the last (relatively) mild day for a while. A cold blast of air will affect the central U.S. by tomorrow. That blast of cold air will rush to the east between Sunday and Monday. Jetstream Saturday Jetstream Monday The cold front will move into our area on Sunday. We'll have scattered rain showers at times during the day, but it won't be a washout. Future Trak Sunday High temps will probably be around 40 degrees. As we cool down in the evening we'll have a scattered wintry mix in the region. Future Trak Sunday Evening Temps will be above freezing. So this will likely be a melting mix for a while. Later in the evening this could briefly turn into a few light snow showers. However, the models have backed off of that scenario since yesterday. Future Trak Sunday Night Future Trak is hardly forecasting anything in the metro now with a very light dusting north of Hampton Roads. Future Trak Snow Forecast Through 11PM Sunday This could still change, but almost all of the models are barely showing any accumulations any more for our region. GFS Snowfall Forecast Through Sunday Evening This will be as the cold front and a small/weak area of low pressure slide offshore. We should then dry out Sunday night into Monday. That blast of cold air will really sink in during the day Monday. High temps will only be near 30 degrees. Temperature Trend Low temps will drop to the teens and possibly single digits both Monday and Tuesday morning. The cold air won't be just here. It will dominate the weather over the eastern 2/3rd's of the country. Temperature Departure From Average Monday At least it will be dry for Inauguration Day and MLK Day. However, the cold will be very tough for those outdoor events. It may be the coldest Inauguration Day in decades. High temps will only be in the 20s up in D.C. Most of Tuesday (and maybe all of it) will be dry. However, things could get very interesting Tuesday night into Wednesday. I will say that the models are very split, and they are bouncing around all over the place with that time-frame. This morning when I got in the GFS model had just a little bit of snow in the region. Mostly along the Outer Banks. Then the early morning update (6Z) came in with a huge flip. It suddenly put in a big area of snow with a strong low forming offshore. GFS Model Wednesday Morning It has this going for a while from Tuesday night through Wednesday morning , but has it all moving out later in the day. For now I have high temps in the low 30s that day. So it would be mostly snow with that scenario. Meanwhile...The European model has basically nothing during that time frame. Euro Model Forecast Wednesday Morning So you can see the difference in the snow totals between the two models. GFS/Euro Snowfall Forecasts Wow! Keep in mind that both models have a little light precip from the Sunday night's snow/mix. So that gets subtracted from the total. However, that's only about a half inch on the GFS. Also keep in mind a couple of other things. This is still very far out in time. We are talking about 6 days out. So I guarantee you the forecast will change. I wish I could update the blog all day as the models come out, but that would be too much to handle. So by the time you read this the models may have already updated a couple of times. We have plenty of time for more model updates through the weekend. Stay tuned for those updates, and start prepping for some very cold air. Meteorologist: Jeremy Wheeler