Good Thursday, folks. We are tracking a cold front across the region today, but this isn’t the system everyone is interested in. It’s the one blowing into town for the Christmas weekend. This will bring a surge of rain and milder air before winter battles back for the final week of the year.

Today’s front can spawn a snow flurry or two this afternoon and evening. Highs will be a little cooler with upper 30s to low 40s.

Rain arrives at the start of the big Christmas weekend. This means some nasty travel conditions from late Friday into Christmas Eve. Locally heavy downpours are possible during this time and the models are spitting out some decent totals.

The new 3km NAM goes through Saturday morning…

nam

Here’s the GFS rainfall forecast through Christmas Eve…

gfs

Christmas Day will see a few showers around, but it’s not going to rain all day. Temps will rise through the 50s and could hit 60. Those temps will continue into Monday as a cold front swings in here. That should have a band of gusty rains along and ahead of it…

canadian

Temps return to near normal behind that front, but another system makes a run at us a few days later. That unleashes colder air to as we round out the final days of the year…

euro-2

That may be able to deliver some flurries and snow showers, too.

The European Model continues to trend much, much colder in the final days of the year. Check out this arctic blast diving into the country…

euro-3

That happens in response to this monster ridge developing off the west coast of Canada and into Alaska…

euro-4

Again, something similar led to our harsh winter periods of the past 3 years. If that block is real, then the ensuing pattern is likely to be an attention getter.

I will update things later today. Enjoy your Thursday and take care.