Good Monday, everybody. It’s the first full week of the new year and our overall weather pattern continues to be a very active one. This shows no signs of changing as we move deeper into January, but the evolving setup is likely to lead to a lot of winter weather opportunities around here and for much of the country.
The weather to start the week is calm out there today, but a few flurries may be noted in the east and southeast to begin the day…
From here, we focus on a fast-moving clipper rolling in late tonight and Tuesday. This looks to bring a period of light rain and a little light snow across the eastern half of the state…
Once this moves away, it’s a bowling ball type system then moves through the Mississippi Valley and into The Tennessee Valley on Thursday. This looks like a west-east moving system that spreads rain and snow along and north of the track of the low. The exact track of this will be the determining factor on if we can get in on some accumulating snow somewhere across the state. As of now, odds favor this being across the southern half of the commonwealth.
The Canadian continues to be the biggest hit in our part of the world…
The EURO is a flatter solution…
The GFS is weakest and farthest south…
After that blows through, the stage is set for something else to come from more of a southwesterly direction late next weekend or early in the following week.
The GFS brings this right on top of us…
The EURO on the other hand is the farthest to the south and east…
You know it’s a wild pattern when those two models trade places on how they handle a system. 😣
The setup will continue to feature our blocking kicking with our trough developing right on top of us…
That’s a brand new run, but it’s awesome to see the fact there is no deviation in the forecast once we get into the second week of the month and beyond.
I will have your normal updates later today. Make it a good one and take care.
It was a very mild December for the Chicago area, as the average temperature at O’Hare Airport of 32.9 degrees averaged 5.2 degrees above normal, while the snowfall for the month of 2.8 inches was way below the normal of 8.2 inches.
For the year 2020, the average temperature of 53.3 degrees averaged 3.4 degrees above normal, and was the fifth warmest year on record for Chicago. The annual precipitation of 39.22 inches was 2.33 inches above normal, while the annual snowfall of 28.0 inches was well below the normal of 36.3 inches.
Here is the complete recap and summary for December 2020 and the year 2020 for Chicago: http://weather.gov/lot/2020climate
Any major winter storms or Arctic outbreaks for Northern Illinois don’t seem to be anywhere in sight for at least the next ten days.
I have no records for my county here in Kentucky to post. In my opinion it’s been a very uneventful Fall and Winter, but it’s still early.
That low pressure system forecast to move through the Tennessee Valley is just a weak disturbance along a very weak subtropical jet. Maybe we might get a light dusting of snow out of it which is better than another cold rain event.
I’m hoping we will escape the frigid Arctic air because in strong La Nina years the distrubances along the front have nothing to phase with so you end up with wasted frigid Arctic air with a potential Ice Storm on the back side of the returning flow. Example : late January 2009.
Maybe some year in the distance future we will return to a weak El Nino phase and get our Winter back here in Southern Indiana and Kentucky hopefully with lots of Snow state wide.
Well, Mike, I thought of you the other evening while watching our local weathercast. They were talking about the chances of rain/snow here and the Met said, “Looks like the heavier snow will skirt across Chicago where they have already had more than their fair share of it this young winter season!” 😀 I had to just shake my head and laugh….apparently, they have about as many clues to the forecast of other cities as they do here! 🙂
Yeah Debbie, that is funny, considering we’re way below average on snowfall!
Here in Owen County, IN I recorded 2.45″ of total precipitation, 2.1″ of snowfall which equaled to 0.30″ of water. Precipitation was 1.19″ below average and snowfall was 1.7″ below average.
It is strange to see a winter month drier than average anymore especially one that wasn’t all that cold. The average high temp. was 1.8°F above average and the average low was 0.8°F above average. It still was much cooler than the past few December’s if memory serves me correctly.
I wii be surprised if the system on Thursday is mainly snow.
I think now that the only areas that will receive accumulating Snow this week will be the Mountains in Western North Carolina and Virginia.
Also there a chance of a Nor’Easter forming.
My Niece and her Husband sent me a photo of the Snowman they built Sunday.
Saturday night they had 6 plus inches of Snow.
They live near Lafayette, Indiana.
I saw where it was snowing in Chicago this morning.
See there are areas that are having Winter weather without the frigid Arctic air.
Here it’s a beautiful Sunny day with temperatures in the mid- forties.
I’ll take it after the ugly weather we had this past weekend.