While we could still see a few snow showers mid-week, the weather pattern will be a little more docile than the last several days. For Tuesday, a brief ridge of high pressure will pass over the region ahead of the next storm system, scheduled to arrive on Wednesday. Tuesday’s high temperature near 40 will rise briefly to the mid-40s on Wednesday, with a slight chance of valley rain turning to snow. Temperatures drop back to the upper 30s on Thursday with isolated snow showers, after which things clear up (with a few clouds left over) through the weekend.

Air is pretty cool stuff. And while the term “lighter than air” gets bandied about a lot, it underscores the fact that air in fact does have mass. So how much does air weigh?

The easiest way to answer that is to look at air pressure. At sea level, the atmosphere has a pressure of about 14.7 pounds per square per inch. So what does that tell us about air’s weight? Applying fluid dynamics, that 14.7 psi means if you took a column of air one square inch in cross section from sea level to the top of the atmosphere, it would weigh in at 14.7 pounds. More tomorrow.