Good Thursday to one and all. We’ve made it to the second month of the year and the overall pattern is about to take a change for the better. This includes some sun and milder temps, but another big change is lurking later in week two as Old Man Winter plots a big comeback.
Highs out there today reach the 50s for most of the state under a mix of sun and clouds.
A weak cold front drops in from the north and northeast on Groundhog Day, bringing the chance for a stray shower or two. The bigger story will be the drop in temps along and behind this front. Highs across the north and east may not get out of the 40s with 50s in the far south and west.
You can see that on this temp forecast for tomorrow afternoon…
Saturday features a mix of sun and clouds with temps in the upper 40s and low 50s across the north and east with 60 possible in the west and south.
The plains system rolling toward the southern states looks to have minimal impact on our weather as of now. The chance is still there for a few showers across the far west and south, but this system may pull in some colder temps from the northeast and into our region…
The winter pattern takes hold later in this second week of February and likely locks in through the rest of the month and into the first part of March. The Ensembles show this arriving right on cue…
The EURO Weeklies have been locked in on this whole scenario for a while and they’re still rock solid with major blocking in the high latitudes and a deep trough in the eastern US. Check out this 30 day average made up of 101 members…
The single run of the EURO Weeklies for the same time period is even more emphatic…
That type of pattern is likely to bring significant cold shots in here and for much of the eastern part of the country. Obviously, you need the cold to get snow chances and the average of the EURO Weeklies see the snow chances pretty far south…
Patience is the key for winter weather lovers as this won’t fully take hold until the middle of the month. Until then, meh.
I’ll have another update later today. Make it a good one and take care.
The winter of 2014/15 saw basically nothing until mid to late Feb I believe? The final snow total for that Jul 2014 to Jun 2015 was 40 inches in Lexington…98% of that was from those two back to back storms….but I think we had a couple of ankle biters prior to that. So I know the phases are different then and now…but does it even matter since anything could happen with this wacky weather
Mark, we are in a negative PDO which resulted in an El Nino that is not reacting with the atmosphere in the way it would if it was positive. Like the El Nino in 2014 – 15.
Thanks Chris. Glad to see the models agreeing on a return to a more winter like pattern. With the lack of phasing of the Polar Jet and the subtropical Jet, I have my doubts on any major snowstorm occurring. More cold and dry coming, but maybe we will have one of those surprise snowstorms ?
Burned a good bit of the stacked firewood during these last six weeks or so. Based on your forecast, I think I’ll bring another trailer load into town. A fire in the stove makes it cozy on snowy, cold, gray days.
I like a good fire.
That it does.
Wow before we know it it will be grass cutting season. I do hope we have at least one more snow but it’s nice to see the sun.