Good Sunday, everyone. Ugly weather is rolling across the region today and we have one more weak system set to glaze the region late Monday. The overall weather picture continues to be dominated by an arctic front and potential storm system moving in for Christmas Eve. This has a chance to deliver the elusive White Christmas to parts of our region.

The day begins with rain and a few flakes across the eastern half of the state. Temps are on the chilly side with 30s to start, but the 40s show up by the afternoon. Showers become rather spotty across the east by the afternoon. Here’s regional radar to follow along…

Another clipper-like system drops in Monday night with a few showers in the north and east. A flake may get into the mix, but this front does knock our temps down for Tuesday with a lot of the region back in the 30s.

This brings us to the setup for Wednesday through Christmas Day and the potential for some snow behind an arctic front surging in. There’s nothing showing up to change my mind on the overall setup, but the details will have to be ironed out over the next few days. The option of seeing accumulating snow is there for the taking. Whether it be just a little bit or more than that remains to be seen, but to have this setup leading into Christmas is pretty darn awesome.

Ahead of all this on Wednesday, southwest winds boost temps deep into the 50s as some late day showers increase from the west. The actual arctic front shows up Wednesday night into early Christmas Eve Day. This will have a major temp drop behind this front as readings drop into the 20s in a short amount of time. At the same time, low pressure is developing somewhere along this front, likely giving us a map looking something like this…

Exactly where this low forms and the overall forward speed of the front will be the two big determining factors in our accumulating snow potential.

The issue the models are trying to resolve comes from so much energy diving into this trough. They have to figure out the upper levels before they can get the surface setup right. This is what I’m always preaching to anyone who will listen. Always watch the upper levels before getting too invested in what the surface maps say.

To illustrate the point of the amount of energy diving into this trough, check out the merry go ’round showing up on the GFS…

Now watch how differently the EURO handles the same energy…

This is why you’re seeing the models with so many different lows showing up at the surface, all fighting one another for supremacy. Once the upper levels show up correctly, you will see the lower levels stop with the multiple low scenario.

For snow lovers, the worst case for this is some festive flakes and coatings. The best case scenario would be for all that energy to consolidate and form one big snowstorm. Of course, there’s a lot of room between those two scenarios and that’s usually where things fall.

Friday night, the EURO took low pressure from St. Louis to Cleveland and I pointed out how absurd that was. The most recent run from Saturday night looks totally different and has the low moving over the Appalachian Mountains…

Notice how it still has a few extra lows showing up before the main low takes control. That’s also something that shows up on the GFS…

The Canadian has been super erratic of late, but it’s looking more and more like the above runs…

Notice how all three models keep light snow going into Christmas as the upper low passes over us and arctic air surges in.

Again, the opportunity for any kind of snow doesn’t come around very often for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, so let’s enjoy the process of tracking the best opportunity we’ve had in a decade and see what happens.

The pattern into the final week of the year will feature a stormy setup as bowling ball type systems roll from west to east across the country. One or two of these may really crank into big systems as additional arctic threats get involved. Check out the EURO Ensembles deep trough as we end 2020 and begin 2021…

I will have updates later today. Until then, make it a  great day and take care.