Good Monday to one and all. It’s Christmas week and things are trending colder and calmer through the first half of the week, but another very active setup is on the way from Christmas weekend into the last week of the year. This is ahead of a dramatic pattern shift that brings abundant cold air into much of the country.

Temps out there today are in the 20s to start and hit the 40s for afternoon highs. That’s pretty typical for this time of year and Tuesday looks to be in similar shape.

A weak cold front drops into the region Tuesday night and early Wednesday and that looks to knock the numbers back down for Wednesday. There’s an outside chance for a stray rain or snow shower in the east with this…

That’s actually a close call with that northern energy just missing the storm off the southeastern seaboad.

Temps behind this front are cold with highs back into the 30s for many on Wednesday. Here’s the NAM temp forecast from 7am Wednesday through 7am Thursday…

Temps rebound quickly just in time for Christmas Eve as low pressure works across the Great Lakes. This will bring few showers in here as a cold front arrives along with Santa…

This looks like a big wind maker, so Santa may have some turbulence coming into town. The GFS wind gusts are way up there…

The EURO is in the same category…

Temps for Christmas Day come down into the 40s for highs.

This kicks off a very busy pattern as cold air threatens to overwhelm the pattern once into the start of the new year. Until then, there’s a fight brewing and that means several systems are likely to roll through here. There’s more of a winter look showing up with these systems shortly after Christmas…

EURO

All of this is leading up to a pattern that can get super cold for much of the country once into 2022. The various ensembles have been leading the way toward this and now the operational models are catching on from time to time. Watch those blocks connect from Alaska to Greenland and force the PV into the states on the GFS…

For fun, this is what the surface looks like on that same run…

Winter is coming, but we may have some more issues before it gets here.

I will update everything later today. Until then, make it a good one and take care.