Everybody knew yesterday's brief excursion into the 70s (it was 71 degrees at BWI for a short time) was a fluke, right? Now we learn just how flukey that was. The weather service is predicting snow, sleet, freezing rain and rain for the balance of the week. It's winter once again.

A reinforcing shot of cold air is going to move into the region today, bringing a chance for showers in the western counties, perhaps even some snow showers.

Tomorrow it looks like we're in the path of an Alberta Clipper - one of those not-so-fierce but potentially troublesome storms that come barreling out of central Canada. They don't bring a lot of moisture with them, but they can drop several inches of snow along a fairly narrow path.

Forecasters aren't sure quite what to expect from this one. They're pointing to similarities between this setup and the Clipper than dropped 4 inches of snow at BWI on Dec. 5. Some locations only got an inch, and others got as much as 7 inches from it.

The uncertainty with this event is the temperature and the exact path of the storm. "The thermal profile will be conducive to produce snowfall," they said in this morning's discussion, and "that snow is likely to come in a swath," with our region in a "transition zone."

Translation: They don't know how much snow we can expect, or where the snow/rain/slop lines will be. Stay tuned. Here's AccuWeather's take on it. Their Elliot Abrams is calling it the snowiest pattern of the winter, for whatever that is worth. Here's Henry Margusity's blog.

Skies could clear enough Wednesday night to afford us a peek at the total lunar eclipse, which begins around 8:30 p.m. and continues through midnight. (We'll have a story in tomorrow's Sun.)

And Thursday will start sunny, but that will be a brief pause before the next wintry weather arrives.

Forecasters say the cold air will remain at the surface, with highs Thursday and Friday only in the 30s, and lows in the 20s. Add in a surge of moisture and warmer air from the Gulf of Mexico as a low now forming over the Texas coast pushes northward, and we get interesting weather.

Forecasters, in their discussion this morning, said, "Thermally, it will be cold enough for snow at the onset. But as warm air advection (inflow) continues (we) foresee a mixed bag, as there should be an above-freezing layer aloft."

And all this wintry mess will stay with us from Thursday night into Saturday. Hang in there. Spring is just 4 1/2 weeks away.

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