Good Saturday and Happy New Year! As we wrap up 2016, I want to say a big thank you for all you’ve done for me and KWC. I’ve always said you guys are the driving force behind this site, and I mean really mean that. 🙂

From a weather standpoint, the new year looks to bring it right out of the gate! I will get to all that in just a moment.

Let’s start with this final day of the year. Temperatures will range from the upper 30s to low 40s for many, with those numbers being higher in the west and south. Some light rains will be possible, and someone may see a wet flake mixing in, especially in the north.

Winds are going to be a big player today and can reach 35mph at times.

New Year’s Day will see a lot of clouds out there to go along with a shower or two. Temps will rise and keep rising all the way through Monday. That’s when low pressure works into the region from the southwest. This will bring showers and thunderstorms into the region, and I can’t rule out a strong storm… Again.

gfs

A true arctic front moves in Tuesday night into Wednesday morning with some flakes and MUCH colder air. This will be followed up by a couple of systems that can cause issues across our part of the world. The first system moving in on Thursday can produce some accumulating snow. The GFS has a high ratio light snow system…

gfs-2

The system rolling in behind that is the one to really keep a close eye on. The pattern continues to strongly suggest a southern stream storm to develop and pass to our south and east. From several days out, all the models will jump around with placement and intensity of this system. I’m not even basing my thoughts on a particular model, but only on the pattern and I’ve talked about this setup for more than a week now.

It’s still fun to watch the various models go back and forth with how to play this. The latest GFS is a big hit for the lower Ohio Valley into the Tennessee Valley…

gfs

The Canadian Model is similar…

canadian

Given the typical model biases of those two models, one could say the storm system should be stronger and slightly farther north and west.

Bitterly cold air comes in behind that system. If we put snow on the ground, look out, temps can get low, low, low.

And guess what? This is a repetitive pattern I see setting up for much of January, and can bring harsh winter weather for much of the country.

I will update things later today. Happy New Year and take care.