Buckle up for weather roller coaster in Western Pa.

It’s going to feel like the weather is at the end of a yo-yo string over the next seven days or so in the Pittsburgh area.

The National Weather Service is calling for high temperatures near 60 for Wednesday and Thursday, followed by a brief cold snap for the beginning of the weekend and then 50s and 60s warmth through the middle of next week.

It seems a bit unusual for February, right? Wrong, says meteorologist Jenna Lake of the NWS office in Moon.

“It’s kind of a roller coaster but it’s very typical for this time of year,” she said. “Maybe it’s not every single February (that this happens) but it is late winter that we start to get these days in the 50s where our plants will kind of get confused. Even flowering trees sometimes have a false sense of the winter being over so they start to come out and then we get another really big cold spell and then things get pushed back again a bit.

“I always get too excited and plant my flowers too early and then it always bites me in the end.”

But for now, hang on to your hat, literally.

“We have a low pressure system that’s going to come through with a front and because the front is rapidly developing, it’s going to create some windy conditions as well as some heavy rainfall over the course of a day or so,” said. Lake.

“It’ll quickly transition to snow once the cold front comes through and that’s when our temperatures are really just going to plummet for a day (or two) with heavy rain and a dusting of snow. Then we’re back up to the upper 50s to low 60s.”

Lake said she expects February to end on a mild note but March will come in like a lion.

“As we begin March that’s when we’ll start to cool down again,” she said. “It’s going to give us a false sense of ‘OK, spring is here, it’s happening.’ And then we’ll have that harsh reality of winter not being done yet.”

Lake said don’t expect an early spring.

Apparently Punxsutawney Phil was right after all.