Good afternoon, everyone. A super-active pattern is ahead of us (not that it’s been quiet this winter) with the first in a series of systems arriving late Thursday. Gusty winds will usher in a colder setup with arctic air and snow threats lining up from the weekend through next week. How many of those snow threats can we cash in on? As always, time will tell. The system moving in tomorrow will have some big time winds along and ahead of it. Here are the latest gusts from the NAM Fam… Rain will be ahead of this front, but with a big temp drop behind it, a switch to light snow will occur. The leading edge of the rain could even start out as a touch of frozen stuff. The models are trying to put down some very light accumulations Thursday night… NAM GFS For the upcoming pattern starting this weekend and going through next week, the models are doing exactly what I’ve been talking about. Each run looks different than the last run of each individual model, but the overall theme of the models continues to be one for a harsh winter pattern to invade much of the country. Too many folks get caught up in specifics from each individual run. Instead, look for what the pattern is saying then we will figure out specifics as we get closer. Bitterly cold air will take control of the overall setup across the USA from the weekend through next week. The models can’t handle that very well to begin with, but we also have several systems working along the southern edge of this air. That means even more chaos from the models. The core of the arctic cold for our region continues to show up more toward later next week than this weekend or early in the new week. We will likely get in on several snow threats starting Friday night and going through next week. How many can we cash in on? That remains to be seen, obviously. Let’s take a look at the recent model forecasts… The Canadian is probably the closest to reality as of right now… The GFS isn’t too far off from that… The EURO is the model exhibiting the wildest swings of late and is likely to continue to do so. The bias of the model in holding back too much energy in the southwest is coming into play. Still, here’s what it shows… Instead of focusing on the specifics of operational models, check out the average of the GFS Ensembles 21 members for temp departures starting Sunday and going through February 19th… Again, those are smoothed out averages, especially as you get deeper in time. Of course, this is when your friendly weatherdude starts thinking spring thoughts, so I’m not sure how I feel about this pattern. 🤷‍♂️ I will try to throw you an evening update, but no promises today. Have a good one and take care.