More arctic air, snow expected this week in Butler County
After a weekend dominated by dangerous winds and single-digit temperatures, the weather in Butler County isn’t expected to improve much for the rest of the week.
Residents woke up on Martin Luther King Day on Monday, Jan. 15, to temperatures as low as 4 degrees, as measured by the weather station at Pittsburgh-Butler Regional Airport.
The temperature is expected to again dip below 10 degrees Wednesday morning, falling to as low as 6 degrees.
Meteorologist David Shallenberger, of the National Weather Service in Pittsburgh, attributes this arctic blast to a low-pressure system bringing cold air from the south and through the Appalachian Mountains.
A similar cold snap struck Butler County a year ago. It was severe enough to push the mercury into negative numbers. While the current cold snap isn’t quite as low, it is predicted to stick around for longer than last year’s spell.
“The residence time of this cold air mass is much longer than anything we had last year and this year so far,” Shallenberger said.
This system also is projected to bring more snow to Butler County over the course of the week, though not as much as regions to the south are expected to receive. Roughly 1 inch of snow is expected to accumulate in Butler from Monday night into Tuesday, with more snow expected to fall on Thursday and Friday.
“Butler may just be a little too far north to get advisory-level type snows, but we have it around 1 or 2 inches in and around Butler,” Shallenberger said.
One silver lining, according to Shallenberger, is that Butler County should not expect to see anything close to the high winds experienced over the weekend, which were high enough to knock out electricity for more than 2,600 customers.
“You’re going to get some days where you could get some 25 to 30 mile-per-hour winds,” Shallenberger said. “But the 50 to 60 mile-per-hour winds we've seen over the last week ... we don't have anything close to that in the next seven days.”
With forecasts calling for frigid weather in Western Pennsylvania and some snow for the remainder of the week, PennDOT is advising motorists to be cautious on the road, especially when they encounter snowplows and other snow-removal equipment. This means staying at least six car lengths behind an operating plow truck.
Motorists should never try to pass a snowplow or travel next to a snowplow. If a snowplow is passing in the opposite lane, a driver should give the plow as much distance as possible.
