Good Tuesday, everybody. Our run of mild weather continues, but the focus of the forecast is on a true winter pattern taking shape as we head into December. It’s a pattern that has the full confidence of the teleconnections , analogs and forecast models. Your friendly weatherdude also approves this message. 🙂

Before we get to that point, we have some mild days and a late week system to track.

Temps remain mild through Wednesday with a mix of sun and clouds.  Those clouds increase early Thursday with gusty showers quickly entering the picture. Those are with a system pushing through here into Friday, bringing temps back down…

A few of the models are trying to pick up on another system crossing the region over the weekend, developing a bigger storm near the east coast…

That’s probably being overplayed on the GFS.

Temps bounce back this weekend into Monday as winds turn back from the southwest. That southwest flow is ahead of our big pattern change moving in here next week.

As major blocking goes up well to our north, it forces a deep trough to develop and lock in across the eastern half of the country…

The European Model is now crashing this cold air in here with a potent system late Monday into Tuesday…

The Euro then brings a clipper through the region by the middle of next week…

That’s all happening a little faster than I think , but the overall idea looks good. That overall idea matches the all the Ensembles and brings a massive trough underneath major blocking. This is an animation of 24 hour increments from the European…

Look at the cold showing up in that trough…

What about snow chances to go with all that cold? Look… I’m sure there will be chances, but there’s nothing specific to point to from this far out.

As I’ve been discussing, climatology suggests all this falls in the period when we typically get our first snowfall across much of the region. With the much colder than normal pattern setting up, we may be able to do it a little better than “normal” as we head through December.

The GFS Ensembles see the snow chances to go along with the cold that comes…

I will hook you up with updates later today, so check back. Have a good Tuesday and take care.