Good Monday everyone and thanks for checking in on us. It’s a new week that will feature another active weather pattern showing up across our region. Our temps go yo yo for the next week as rain chances increase with the threat of something wintry maybe showing up by the weekend.

Let’s start things out with the precious present. Today features another cold start before some clouds increase as the day goes on. A weak disturbance to our south will throw a little moisture our way and this may kick off a shower or two across the south. Check on regional radar through the day…



Highs today will head into the upper 40s for many with a few low 50s possible.

A plains storm is going to crank up over the next few days. Milder air out ahead of this will spread in from the west for Tuesday and Wednesday with a few showers possible. The low will track into the western Great Lakes and drag a cold front in here on Thursday as our rain becomes widespread.

The GFS Ensembles



The cold presses in from the northwest on Friday and this will set up a sharp temp gradient from north to south across the country. The rest of the forecast period will be determined by when and where this cutoff low in the southwest comes out…



This thing is driving the models crazy and that’s not a good thing as they have been in Waffle House mode for a while now. The GFS has absolutely NO idea on what to do with that and hasn’t shown the same solution yet. The boys and girls at NCEP have nearly rendered this model useless as it is currently in 4th place in verification scores.

That said… none of the models are very good right now. The GFS Ensembles continue to show the potential for overrunning precipitation Friday into Saturday…



That would imply some cold rain on Friday and a little rain or snow on Saturday. Again… that’s me assuming the model is correct. I will give it one thing… it has, at least, been consistent and does have support from the UKMET, NOGAPS and Canadian.

When does the big upper low come out of the desert southwest and what does it mean for us? That’s something I can’t answer right now as those things have a mind of their own and can meander around for days before really moving. It should develop into a powerhouse storm when it does. Then it would be up to the track as to what it would bring us.

We’re now 11 full days into meteorological winter and the pattern hasn’t been what my analog years showed me. Tennessee stole our snow… twice, but our temps are actually normal to slightly below normal so far. That is telling because we have absolutely ZERO blocking… yet our temps aren’t what you would expect for a pattern with no blocking. There are increasing signs for blocking to FINALLY show up over the next few weeks and into much of January. Let’s sit back and see if it’s real or not.

Have a great Monday and take care.