Good Saturday, everyone. It’s another cold and rather gloomy day for much of the region as a few flurries fly. The focus of our forecast going forward is on a setup that is likely to go full blown winter setup that threatens to turn harsh in the coming weeks. That’s because arctic air gets involved in the pattern that will also see winter storms showing up across the country.
Before we get to the future, let’s take one last look back at 2020. The nationwide numbers are in for rainfall and show Kentucky with another wetter than normal year…
But… But… But… Weather twitter kept telling me we were in a drought. 😜 One day these folks will learn to stop following the awful Drought Monitor that shows a drought every time we go 3 days without rain.
Ok, let’s get back to the weather early in 2021. Clouds are pulling a NKOTB and hanging tough out there today as flurries and a few snow showers return. Some hit and run coatings are possible for a few spots. Here’s your regional radar to follow along with anything that shows up…
Sunday looks like a decent day as some sun shows up with temps recovering to around normal.
The southern stream storm system potential for Monday and Tuesday continues to look kinda meh at the moment. Some light snow is possible late Monday and early Tuesday…
Why are we seeing this system being sheared out and showing up weaker? Because the systems dropping in behind it are showing up earlier and earlier. You guys know I’ve been pretty adamant on pronounced changes toward a significant winter period starting in the second week of January. The tremendous amount of blocking is ready to start flexing and forcing the jet stream to take some major dips into our part of the world.
It looks like the first dip comes with a cold front by late Wednesday or Thursday and will be followed by several systems after that into early the following week…
Folks, this is a very extreme pattern taking shape across the northern hemisphere. This is the 10 day average (January 15-25) 500mb departures map from the GFS Ensembles…
That’s a frigid look across much of the country and is the total opposite look compared to what we had going on around this time last year.
Several days ago, I shared the analogs based on the long range run of some of the computer models. All the analog years were from bitterly cold periods such as January 1977 and January 1985. Check out the dates from the Thursday night run of the GFS…
5 of the top 10 matches were from 1977 with two others from 1985. 🥶
I will hook you guys up again later today. Have a good one and take care.
I don’t remember 1985 as a particularly cold winter, but I definitely remember January 1977 when the high temperature didn’t get above zero degrees F for at least a week.
Extreme frigid temperatures followed an Alberta Clipper that deposited four inches of Snow on New Years Day. After that temperatures moderated till mid month when we had a major Snowstorm and temperatures dropped to -10 to -15 degrees F.
We had cold and Snow through mid April in 1977 followed by a very hot and dry June and July.
The Winter 2021 in my opinion will not even come close to the Winters of 1976-77 and 78.
Reading the previous article posted last evening on this blog most of Europe will have frigid, cold and the Eastern US not so much, which is a good thing.
Snowfall may increase in the Eastern US, but that entirely depends on ENSO as to what areas will see repeated Winter storms.
The rain in Spain is snow on the plain.Lol
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/09/army-rescues-motorists-after-storm-filomena-blankets-spain-in-snow
EPS anyone
Planning a camping trip to the highlands of central West Virgins for the last weekend of Jan. Hoping for cold and snow. How about it, Chris? Wat are my chances? Need to know how to pack!