Good evening, gang. We had our first report of single digit temps to start the day, and that could be a sign of things to come. A very cold pattern is taking shape for much of the country over the next few weeks. The question is… How much snow can we get out of it? That, as always, remains to be seen, but we have our chances.
The first system to watch comes this weekend as a blast of arctic cold moves in. The models continue to try to get a handle on what to do with a storm system developing along this boundary late Saturday and Sunday. There is a lot of energy diving through the base of our trough, and that’s leading to the models trying to figure out which energy piece to key in on.
The latest Canadian…
You can see how disjointed it is with the precipitation shield as it has a couple of systems battling it out. That still manages to put down a light snowfall…
The European Model is also trying to figure out what it wants to do with this system…
The European Ensembles Mean has a more consolidated low farther west into the Appalachian Mountains by Sunday…
The GFS is within the range when it just loses things. This model sees things from a week or 10 days away… then loses it within the 5 day window… then brings it back a few days later. Right now… it’s lost and has no storm system anywhere…
It won’t be until late Thursday or Friday before we see the models coming to grips with all the energy and the amount of cold diving in behind it. Can we get some snow around here this weekend? Absolutely. A little? More than a little? We will sort that out in a few days.
Speaking of the cold coming in behind this system. The Canadian continues to run the coldest of the bunch by Monday morning…
That’s likely to be too cold, even if we can get some snow on the ground.
The arctic blast coming in behind this by the middle of next week is a strong one…
That will likely be accompanied by an arctic wave that produces some snow around here.
I will see you for the late night update. Take care.
Thanks Chris for update. I can’t wait to see what the models bring on Thursday and Friday. Rooting for several of inches of SNOW!!!!!
Me too!
Apologies if this has been mentioned, but Harlan Mesonet is located at 4,000 feet, so it’s really not completely unexpected that they had such a cold reading. Still, it is the coldest of the season so far.
Shhh, don’t confuse things with your facts and context. 😉
Apps liking the period of 17th -20th..Signal has been showing up 3 or 4 days for this time period..Could be first decent snow of the winter..Watch this period as we get closer..
I’ll be wishing and hoping and waiting!
Seems more system dynamics this winter, so the snow forecasts could be “interesting”. Some Mets could be driven to drinking 😉
Hey Chris…several times over the past couple years you’ve mentioned how the GFS seems prone to losing storms in the 3-7 day range only to pick-up on them again a few days out. Any thoughts as to why the model behaves this way?
Chris, I also was wondering the same question what Jimmie is bringing up about the GFS not doing very good with a handle on storms showing up within the timeframe out a week in advance.
Let’s hope for some big snows in the near future. Thank you chris for all you do to keep us weather enthusiasts informed.