Meteorology and atmospheric science at Penn State.

This is Weather World.

Good evening, Pennsylvania, and welcome to Weather World on this Friday night, October 30th, 2026, I'm Carl Schneider.

Thank you so much for joining us on this day.

That was bright and breezy.

Classic post-frontal setup here in central Pennsylvania.

Of the details on the short range forecast through the Halloween weekend, which I'll have to admit is not very scary.

We'll also have the extended forecast where we might see a chance of rain, and Giannis will have week two trends, but we'll start by jumping into the forecast with a look at the low temperatures across Pennsylvania this morning.

And really wanted to point this out because many folks started the day in the 50s, which in terms of central and northern PA is near average highs for this time of year.

This is because we had warm advection ahead of a cold front that moved through in the overnight hours.

And we're post-frontal today.

And that's the reason it's been bright and breezy across most of the Commonwealth.

So nine camera view shows a mix of clouds and sun across northern Pennsylvania and elsewhere.

It was just mainly a clear day with a few cirrus clouds drifting through.

The low clouds are breaking up and are going to be out of the picture.

For tonight.

We'll have to deal with the high clouds here in the short range forecast, and those will be increasing in coverage as we go through the weekend.

So the radar and satellite obviously nothing on the radar today.

It was a dry day.

You can see that low cloud deck early in the day across the northern tier.

That has since dissipated.

And then a few high cirrus drifted through parts of northern and central Pennsylvania through the afternoon hours.

I think it's going to be a mostly clear night for all of us.

The temperatures are very interesting today because across northern Pennsylvania, we really didn't go much of anywhere.

It's even dropped in the upper 40s in Bradford.

A sign of things to come tonight.

But southeast of the mountains where we've had the downsloping flow, that's allowed temperatures to reach or even exceed 70 in some locations.

We're not going to be this warm this weekend, but generally a few degrees above average in the 50s and 60s for most.

Another big story today were the wind speeds, sustained winds.

It's very breezy day behind this front.

Very common place in the cold season here in central PA.

This is something that's been absent recently.

So the good news is if you don't like wind, these values are going to be diminishing very quickly after dark.

And we're going to have little, if any, wind to deal with through the weekend.

Broader view shows that we're kind of high and dry here in the Mid-Atlantic.

We have to expand to the Conus view to really see anything interesting.

Massive rain and some embedded downpours associated with the remnants of Tropical Storm Vance, bringing beneficial rains to the Southern Plains.

But thanks to a high pressure drifting from the Great Lakes, and that's going to camp itself overhead, it's going to push all of this activity to the south.

The only impact we're going to have over the weekend due to this is the cloud cover, specifically in the high variety in altitude.

And I should say the here we're looking at the infrared satellite in the brighter colors are corresponding to the colder cloud tops, telling us those are high in altitude and those are kind of be streaming off towards our region and will increase in coverage through the day tomorrow and especially into Sunday.

But the very warm air mass is going to stay to the south, and we're just going to be dealing with slightly above average temperatures with kind of west northwest flow here through the weekend.

So the evening surface map shows that high pressure taking control across the Great Lakes.

It will slide here to the east overnight.

So I think most of us stay clear.

A few high clouds drifting by.

But the story of the cloud cover is going to be moving into tomorrow, where cloud cover will increase in western Pennsylvania through the afternoon hours.

Notice the high pressure sitting right over Pennsylvania.

So very little, if any, in the way of winds tomorrow.

And you'll see the center of this high pressure doesn't really go anywhere as we go towards Sunday either, but the cloud cover will likely increase in coverage through the day Sunday.

So will become mostly cloudy, but that won't make it feel cold or chilly.

We'll still be reaching the low to mid 60s for most of us for daytime highs on Sunday.

So tonight, the nighttime chill returns.

Frost and freeze risk once again for north central PA, where some locations could even drop into the upper 20s.

Elsewhere, just a light breeze that will gradually diminish after midnight, with lows hanging into the mid 30s to lower 40s in southeastern Pennsylvania.

You'll see plenty of stars early in the night before the moon rises around the middle of the night going into Saturday.

Halloween bright but not as breezy as it was today.

Little if any wind, mostly sunny across most of the Commonwealth, with clouds increasing late in the day in the west.

Highs very comfortable.

Mid 50s.

North, lower 60s southeast and then moving into Sunday.

Much of the same in terms of the temperature department taking up maybe a little bit.

The clocks falling back on Sunday morning.

And we'll have a very nice afternoon, a little bit warmer along the I-79 corridor in the mid 60s.

So we're back with the extended forecast.

Up next.

Part two of our Friday forecast frenzy is the extended forecast, which will take us through the first full week of November.

And we finally have some rain to talk about, though I think we'll have to wait until the second half of the week before those rain chances really materialize.

Before we get there, I wanted to remind folks that we do have a contest underway.

Our annual snowflake contest invites you, the viewer, at home, to be the forecaster and guess the date of the first one inch snow of the season at all the stations listed here on the map, and we've got some great prizes at stake, including our snowflake, wooden ornaments, an umbrella, and more.

You can go to our website, weather.psu.edu, and click on the link on the home page.

That forecast must be submitted by tomorrow night, so make sure you get those in if you haven't already.

All right, turning back to the extended forecast, we'll begin with a look at the water vapor satellite imagery.

This is our way to get a sense of the steering winds aloft.

And we've been predominantly seeing high pressure in control and kind of a lack of moisture with any boundaries that have crossed recently, only spitting out just about two hundredths of an inch of rain in Erie last night, sprinkles elsewhere.

So we've had a prolonged dry stretch, and that does look to continue as we begin the week ahead.

With high pressure back in control at the surface, I think that will slowly be slipping eastward.

I think this pattern, by the way, still favors mild conditions, mild nights, patchy valley fog likely, and temperatures during the daytime, mainly in the 60s.

We should be in the 50s this time of year.

We're dry on Monday and Tuesday.

I don't think it will be quite as sunny as we've had in recent weeks, but I think we will see at least a mix of clouds and sun watching this piece of energy off the coast that will be a player potentially going into the second half of the week, along with this trough here in the plains.

These two will bring us our rain chances by the time we get to, especially Thursday and Friday.

Here's Wednesday on the European model.

Still seeing that coastal low in this approaching trough.

We'll see a cold front slicing through the Midwest.

A lot of the energy with that off to the north.

But we will see kind of a secondary area of low pressure forming in the Mississippi River Valley.

And if those two energies consolidate, we could be talking about some heavier precipitation, especially in eastern Pennsylvania, as we go into Thursday.

By Friday, that storm system kind of cuts off, and we'll be looking at rain showers wrapping around as we conclude the workweek.

A different perspective here on the precipitation tracker I mentioned high pressure remains in control for Monday, Tuesday, and most of Wednesday.

We are watching that boundary still situated off to our west with a kind of a warm front that will be stationed farther off to the north area of low pressure off the coast may eventually inject some more moisture.

There's more uncertainty with just how this coastal low could interact.

The European model does spit out some steadier precipitation arriving here on Thursday.

Other models kind of a slower arrival of that.

But no matter which way you shake it, our rain chances finally increase Thursday and Friday of next week.

The uncertainty, I think, will be just how widespread the heavy rain chance will be as we go into the end of the week also becomes breezy, but no model solutions.

Pull any cool air in here next week, so on Monday we'll see clouds and sunshine.

Temperatures in the 60s, mild nights, many places staying in the 40s and 50s, high clouds for election day.

But otherwise no weather worries.

So be sure to get out and make a plan to vote.

A mix of clouds and sun on Wednesday.

Temperatures remain above average, and then I think we'll see mostly cloudy skies Thursday and Friday.

And finally, some rain could be steady and maybe a soaking rain.

Some models even showing an inch of rain by the end of the week.

Some of that could also be heavy in the east.

That does it for the extended forecast.

John goes deeper in November.

Up next.

Week.

Two trends is our once a week opportunity, always on Fridays to look beyond the extended forecast into the period 8 to 14 days out.

So this will begin next Saturday and extend through two weeks from today.

We don't give you too many specifics, largely generalities.

And I think what I can say about this period is it seems unlikely that we would see much in the way of unusual chill.

And although the pattern will be a little more active than it has been over the last ten days or so, I see the dryness dominating the wetness during that week two period.

Here are the average highs and lows right in the middle of the week two period.

These numbers are 2 to 3 degrees lower than they were last week when they showed them to you.

And keep these numbers in mind, because I think during the week two period, temperatures will largely be at or above these climatological averages.

Notice that by this time, even a temperature in the mid to upper 50s would be above average.

In central Pennsylvania.

We're going to show you the solutions from about 30 different computer model simulations, each starting with slightly different starting values.

These pressure lines up around 20,000ft, allow us to evaluate the upper air winds, which tend to follow these lines from west to east.

Also, where these lines dip to the southeast, troughs tend to bring inclement weather and cooler than average weather, at least at high altitudes, and where they bulge to the north, these ridges and there's a distinct one in western Canada, represent relatively warm air aloft and generally sinking air and dry weather as we go through time.

This is next Wednesday.

The individual colored lines are separating because that's a sign of the growing uncertainty.

I want to draw your attention to the blue lines this time of year.

The blue lines really represent unusual chill and notice they are bottled up in Canada and even at the beginning of the my period next Saturday, those blue lines are bottled up in Canada, which means that there's really no unusual chill around to funnel into the lower 48 states.

So even though our wind patterns will begin to shift to more of a northwesterly flow, there's no cold air in Canada.

This is now averaging all of the model solutions.

And these amber and orange colors here represent temperatures at high altitudes above average.

So even in a northwest flow, we really can't get any kind of chill in here.

So I'm going to advertise during the week two period, a number of days above average and none below average.

Despite the presence of this bluish color here, which indicates slightly cooler air aloft.

This northwest flow is also a generally dry pattern.

And so although I think there will be opportunities, more opportunities than we have had lately to get precipitation, I don't have a high degree of confidence to put any of those opportunities on our week two chart.

So taking a look at the precipitation line, I do have some confidence of another extended period of dry weather, largely at the beginning of the week two period.

I'm not saying it's not going to rain, but I don't have high confidence in when that precipitation would occur.

On the temperature line, you see three mild days.

It won't be a consistently mild pattern, but unseasonable cold is unlikely.

It's even possible that these three days here could end up warmer than average as well.

That's it for week two trends.

We'll be back in a moment with more.

Some comfortable weather is in store for our Halloween weekend.

Beginning with this evening, the winds will diminish so it will be comfortable, but then temperatures will quickly tumble as we go through the overnight hours, possibly below freezing in north central PA, mid 30s to low 40s.

Elsewhere, not much in the way of cloud cover, and by midnight or so not much in the way of wind either.

Then going into Saturday, bright but not as breezy as it was today.

High temperatures, very comfortable.

Mid 50s.

North low 60s.

Southeast light winds.

So that won't be an issue.

We'll have some high clouds moving in from the west, which will increase cloud cover in western Pennsylvania.

By the afternoon.

Those will spread eastward overnight Friday or Saturday night, I should say, into Sunday.

As we fall back, it will become mostly cloudy across much of central and western Pennsylvania throughout the day.

On Sunday, more of a filtered sunshine scenario in eastern Pennsylvania.

But the cloud cover shouldn't limit high temperatures.

Still very mild for this time of year.

Mid 60s along the I-79 corridor.

Low 60s in central PA and low 60s in the southeast as well.

So very comfortable to end the weekend.

So thank you all so much for joining us tonight.

Be sure to join us again Monday for the winter weather weather, world Winter outlook.

We'll see you then.