Cold but dry day

Arctic air and snow created icy roads and numerous accidents across the Great Lakes and Appalachians on Monday.

A surge of arctic air is reaching across southern Canada this morning and all the way down to the Gulf States. Along the leading edge of the system snow squalls broke out across the region yesterday with heavy snow reported in many locals in Quebec and Ontario as well as Vermont/NY. Thankfully the snow spared Montreal and the usual traffic nightmare that results. In any event we are cold this morning, with -14C here on Ile Perrot and a brisk northwest wind making it feel like -19C. As the cold air deepens, the mercury will not budge today under mostly sunny skies. Lows tonight will be a very cold -20C. Then we are in for a period of unsettled, but fairly mundane weather. Several weak frontal systems will bounce the temperature from above to below normal into the weekend along with a chance for very light amounts of snow. At the most we may see an inch or two combined from the frontal boundaries, with very little storm activity on the weather map.

The cold air sweeping across the Great Lakes produced intense snow squalls yesterday in southwestern Ontario. The heaviest bands off Georgian Bay affected London, Ontario with 30cm of snow as of early this morning. More snow, perhaps another 15cm could fall today. The heavy snow is also affecting western New York, northern Pennsylvania and Ohio as well as portions of Michigan and Indiana. Light snow and freezing rain iced highways across the Appalachians, and frost and freeze warnings are in effect for most of northern and central Florida this morning. As of 7am it was -1C (30F) in Jacksonville, 4C (41F) in Melbourne, 2C (36F) at Daytona Beach and the warm spot Miami at 12C (54F).