Good afternoon, folks. We continue to focus on a forecast that’s ugly in terms of the severe weather threat late Friday into early Saturday. In the overall scheme of things, I have no changes to the ideas I’ve had out for several days now.
The Storm Prediction Center continues to get much more aggressive on the threat with an Enhanced Risk covering the western half of the state Friday…
Here’s the current tornado threat from the SPC…
Anytime you see a hatched area, that’s a sign of increased confidence in the threat. This is the area where a few strong tornadoes will be possible.
The threat for damaging winds is pretty high and more widespread…
That threat pushes eastward with the line Friday night and Saturday morning. The SPC has a lower severe risk in the east for early Sunday…
Temps crash from west to east behind the front on Saturday and sets the stage for a slightly colder than normal Sunday.
Temps surge next week to well above normal ahead of a strong cold front arriving Thursday. This brings rain and a temp drop in here for the end of the week and kicks off a transition to colder that takes us into the start of Christmas week…
EURO
Canadian
The second system showing up on the models for early Christmas week shows up better on the GFS as it goes deeper into the week. Here’s the current view of the model…
You can see how the GFS is now bringing troughs into the east for Christmas week…
That’s pretty cool to see the operational models responding to what the MJO has been signaling for a while now… A change to colder in the run up to Christmas.
Enjoy the rest of the day and take care.
I am looking forward to a cold rain on Christmas.
Not counting on a backside low to bring any accumulating snow.
Festive flakes might be a possibility.
Even on Christmas week when it’s predicted to get colder, the computer models are showing mostly rains for the Midwest, with the significant snow confined to the far northern areas of the Midwest.