It is 53 degrees before dawn today after a low of 1 on Sunday and chill factors of minus 10 to minus 25 by Tuesday, forecasts indicate.
Calling the last 24 hours and the next 24 hours in weather "weird and unusual," a meteorologist this morning laid out back-to-back 50-degree swings in the region.
Sunday morning's low was 1 degree. At the moment, it's 53 degrees. This time Tuesday it will be near zero again, with wind chills 10 to 25 below zero, Rob Reale said from the WeatherWorks headquarters in Hackettstown.
While Sunday dawned frigid and clear and descended into a frozen rain storm as the air warmed, today began wet and warm, with much of the ice and a lot of last week's snow melting.
Basically a sliver a warm air was embedded between two very cold air masses, Reale said. A high pressure area is moving out, and a cold front is pushing in, he said.
The weather risk during the early rush was fog, but ice could again be a concern by the return commute, Reale said.
Within an hour or two, the warm weather will be forced out of the area by even colder air than dominated the early part of the weekend, Reale said. Saturday morning's low tied the record for Jan. 4 at minus 4 degrees.
The rain should stop by noon today, but we could be back to freezing by sunset, Reale said. And while the increasing breeze should dry up a lot of the water currently on streets and sidewalks, expect some refreezing, he said.
"Tonight it will be near zero, with tomorrow in the single digits -- you'll be lucky to get to 10," he said, as the winds kick up to 30 to 40 mph.
The weather should gradually warm up through the week and likely eventually break freezing, he said. There is some disorganized precipitation as the week goes on, he said.
Reale said this is "one of the crazier" winter weather stretches not involving snow that he's seen. A meteorologist's job this winter is "interesting for sure," he said.
The National Weather Service has put a wind-chill advisory in place from 1 a.m. Tuesday through 6 a.m. Wednesday. And a dense fog advisory was in place through 7 this morning.
Be careful out there this morning. Even though it was in the 50s, Broadway in Bangor was "a sheet of ice," according to emergency radio reports that detailed a four-vehicle crash just after 6 this morning in the 100 block of South Fourth Street.