Good Wednesday, everybody. It’s a seasonally cold day across the bluegrass state, as a few flakes fly in the central and east. The pattern for the rest of January is for up and down temps to continue, but it’s the setup for early February getting my attention.

That’s when we will be seeing the pattern reverting back toward a harsh one for much of the country. I will get to that in a minute. Let’s concentrate on where we going in the short-term, first.

Highs today are upper 30s and low 40s for many, with the possibility for a coating or two of flakes. The best chance is early today across the central and east…

Thursday finds our thermometers shooting back into the 40s, with the 50s waiting on us for Friday and Saturday. That’s ahead of another system rolling our way in the form of a cold front. Showers will quickly increase this weekend, but can we get some flakes behind the front?

That’s, at least, a possibility, depending on how much of a wave of low pressure we can get to develop along the front. Odds continue to favor a pretty progressive system…

A seasonal brand of chill comes in behind that, but should get turned around pretty quickly by the middle of next week. That’s when a milder surge of air comes into play for the final day of January, ahead of a massive change coming as we head into February.

The GFS is really rushing this change, with a deep trough invading by the end of next week…

The brings a true arctic front in here and fires up a big storm system…

That’s probably overdone, but something similar to that is possible with the pattern I see taking shape for February.

This early February flip back to a harsh winter setup comes from a major blocking event in the eastern Pacific into Alaska…

Combine that with a Negative Arctic Oscillation and you can get some major cold back into the country. You can see that continuous supply setting up on the Ensembles…

I will have updates later today, so check back. Make it a good one and take care.