UPDATE: Expected Winter Storm Fails to Materialize

UPDATE 6 p.m. Wednesday: With little more than wet pavement and a few occasional snow flakes during the rush hour, weather forecasters are now predicting less than an inch of accumulated snow from this winter weather event. Most of the accululations will remain far north and west of the D.C. area and in elevated areas.

Thursday's weather will be sunny and much warmer. The high temperature should be about 48 degrees, allowing

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UPDATE 8:55 a.m. Wednesday: Area weather forecasters predict Northern Virginia will see a wintry mix of rain and snow beginning at about noon on Wednesday, falling until about 10:30 p.m.

NBC-TV Channel 4 metereologist Tom Kierein forecasts 1-4 inches of snow, mainly north and west of the metro area. The Capital Weather Gang's Dan Stillman says we may see just enough snow to whiten the ground. The weather could impact the evening commute, he noted.

The National Weather Service forecasts a sunny Thursday with a high of 45 degrees, and weekend temperatures only reaching as high as the mid-30s.

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Original post, Tuesday morning:

Maybe Punxsutawney Phil was right in predicting six more weeks of winter.

Temperatures Tuesday night will dip into the low to mid-30s before a wintry mix starts during the Wednesday morning rush hour.

The precipitation should move out by the end of the day. The high temperature Wednesday will be 39.

Very little accumulation is expected and anything that might accumulate will probably stick only to grass and cars.

Warm, Dry Winter So Far

Wednesday’s potential snow is an anomaly this winter.

In Northern Virginia, the normal average snowfall through the end of January is 8.4 inches. So far this winter, we’ve had just 1.7 inches of the white stuff, according to the Capital Weather Gang.

Temperatures in the region also have been well above average. The average high temperature in January is 43 in the D.C. area. This January the average temperature was 48, with four days reaching a high of 60 degrees or above. On the first day of February, the high temperature in the area was 72 degrees.

It’s been so warm and dry, in fact, that at least one .

Virginia isn’t alone: Nationwide, this has been one of the warmest and least snowy winters on record. January was the third-least snowy on record for the lower 40 states, according to the Global Snow Lab at Rutgers University, which has been keeping snowfall records since the late 1960s.

Alaska is this year’s outlier. Several towns in Alaska have broken snowfall and low temperature records this winter.