Good Friday, everyone. We are on the southern edge of an early season arctic air mass as we close out the work week. This is bringing frigid wind chills our way into early Saturday, with more chilly weather through the weekend. Beyond that, it’s a very interesting setup taking shape in the run up to Thanksgiving.

Highs today will range from 40-45 in the west and far south, to the mid and upper 30s for much of central and eastern parts of the state. Wind chill numbers will be much colder.

Lows by Saturday morning are deep into the 20s with a wind chill down into the teens for most of the region. Ouch. Clouds increase from west to east during the day and that keeps afternoon temps in check…

Those clouds will then produce a few showers into Sunday. That will keep the temps on the chilly side, especially across the central and east…

Seasonal temps will greet us as we head into another work week, but another cold front shows up by Tuesday night and Wednesday. This will bring more showers in here…

The lead up to Thanksgiving week continues to look very active, with a wintry look to it. Watch these deep troughs swinging through here as some major blocking develops in Canada…

That’s a lot of cold air coming into the eastern half of the country, potentially setting the stage for some early season winter events.

Speaking of winter, the snow cover across North America and the Northern Hemisphere is very impressive…

This setup is night and day different from last year, when snow cover across North America was about as wimpy as ever for this time of year.

Why is this important going forward? Because that expanding snowpack can really help create and sustain some major cold shots deep into the United states. The current shot is exhibit A. It’s not overly impressive in terms of the pressures, but it’s already breaking record low temps in the north and will do so into the northeast this weekend.

For months, I’ve said the ingredients are there for a fast-starting winter. We already had snow in October and I will be surprised if we don’t see snow before November ends. This could catapult us into a front loaded winter full of fun and games.

I will update things later today. Take care.