"How Cold Is It?"

Now

A Freeze Watch is in effect for Friday night.

Clear, chilly. It's a bit early for the "How cold is it?" jokes, but you might want to at least start thinking about where you stored those flannel sheets over the summer. After some briefly heavy showers overnight (0.38" at National, 0.34" at Dulles), it's a brilliantly crisp fall afternoon in the Washington metro area. The daily high was officially 60° near 1am, but mid 50s are much more the order of the day this afternoon. It's also breezy; winds gusted as high as 30 mph earlier.

Although temperatures are substantially lower than yesterday, the drop in humidity is even more dramatic, with dewpoints generally in the 20s (an 18° report from the Culpeper robo-observer looks a bit out of whack). This will allow lows to plunge the next couple of nights, especially where winds are light.

Pictured: Temperature chart at 4pm today from Unisys shows a strong change over the Mid Atlantic area from earlier in the week.

Tonight and Tomorrow

Cold. Under clear skies and diminishing winds tonight, temperatures will drop to near 35° downtown and the upper 20s in the coolest 'burbs. Tomorrow will be sunny and cold for the season, highs in the upper 40s.

For the outlook through the weekend and Larson's Long Range, scroll down to Josh's post below.

Mediarology

Ted Turner and Richard Branson will be guests on The Weather Channel's "Climate Code" this Sunday at 5pm.

The dcrtv blog reported recently that WTTG Channel 5 morning weatherman Tony Perkins recently received an Alumni Achievement Award from American University. Perkins is a 1981 graduate of the School of Communication.