Up & Down Temperatures to Continue
By Quincy Vagell on October 9, 2012, 10:15am
Use your ← → (arrow) keys to browse more stories.
1 of 6 
A roller coaster ride of temperatures is forecast to continue.
The past few days have already featured temperatures ranging from near 80 degrees, to down into the 30's with scattered frost, in the matter of less than 48 hours. Wild temperature swings like this are expected to continue.
Analysis:
A large ridge of high pressure had pushed temperatures well into the 70's on both Friday and Saturday. That ridge was quickly replaced with a messy pattern of clouds and spotty showers, along with daytime temperatures struggling into the 50's.
As we head through the next week or so, this fluctuation will likely continue.
The map above is the ECMWF 500mb forecast for Saturday night. It shows a lot of "ripples" in the overall upper level flow. This basically means that high pressure will give way to several "nuisance" troughs, bringing little bouts of cooler air and scattered showers. Along with that, some warm days should be mixed in.
Forecast:
Temperatures will try to hit the 60-degree mark for Wednesday and Thursday, but a trough should push down cooler air for Canada by Friday. In fact, many areas could be talking about frost and even freeze conditions for Friday and/or Saturday morning.
A quick warming trend is then increasingly likely for later Saturday and into Sunday and Monday. The models have been showing that temperatures could easily get back into the 70's.
For the rest of next week, an even bigger warming trend could be possible, but there are a few disturbances that may get in the way.
Read on for further details of what to expect.
