What a tease. Mother Nature will toy with us again Thursday as yet another arctic cold front plows through, and another coastal low spins up off the Virginia Capes.

In any other winter that could be the recipe for a significant snowstorm for the Baltimore region. But in this winter of feeble snowstorms and too-mild temperatures we're likely looking instead at snow showers, and snow squalls in far Southern Maryland.

Today we get high pressure building in from the west. That means clear skies and good stargazing tonight if you want to brave the coldest temperatures we'll see for the rest of the week. The moon is still big and bright, and ruddy Mars still gleams high overhead in the evening. You might even spy Mercury lurking low on the western horizon after sunset.

By daybreak Thursday the next arctic front pushes across the mid-Atlantic states, triggering scattered snow showers, "where any burst could produce a quick coating of snow not unlike Tuesday of last week," the forecasters at Sterling said this morning.

Complicating the picture are computer models showing the development of a storm center off the coast. Some models predict that storm will get strong enough to increase the snowfall in Southern Maryland. "We will have to keep a close watch on successive model runs because if the NAM (model) is correct there will be the potential for a few inches across portions of (the forecast area)."

Okay, so it's hardly enough weather to write about. But this winter, this is the sort of stuff we get. Beyond tomorrow, we're looking at seasonably mild temperatures through the weekend. The next chance for precipitation comes early next week. They're expecting "mainly rain."