Good Wednesday to one and all and thanks for making the Center one of your stops for weather. We have a bit of a break coming up for the next few days before the pattern goes back to something similar to what brought us the record cold and snow for December.

Even with a brief break ahead… old man winter is having trouble letting go. There is the potential for some light freezing rain across parts of the area tonight into very early Thursday. Moisture will be streaming northward into the state from the southwest later today. The low level cold air in northern and eastern Kentucky will not go quietly into the night and will keep temps near 32 degrees as the moisture moves in. This can result in a few hours of freezing rain for some areas and can lead to some slick travel before readings warm enough for light rain to take over pretty quickly Thursday.

You can follow today’s slug of moisture surging in from the southwest…



High temps today will generally be in the low and mid 30s in the east to low and mid 40s in the west. Highs for Thursday will push into the upper 30s and low 40s east to mid and upper 40s west as showers continue.

A major storm will be rolling out of the rockies late Thursday and into the upper midwest by New Year’s Eve. This will likely have blizzard conditions behind it with a surge of heavy rain and even thunderstorms ahead of it along a cold front. This front will be pushing into the western Ohio Valley as we say goodbye to 2010 and hello to 2011. Check out how the temp map on the GFS model looks not too long after the clock strikes the new year…



That is a heck of a temp gradient working eastward across the region. That front will have plenty of rains with it for later Friday night into New Year’s Day. Temps ahead of the front will be 50ish with 30s moving in quickly behind it for January first. The front should clear the area by Saturday evening with 30s taking over…



Sunday will be a MUCH colder day with highs in the low and mid 30s and lows back into the low and mid 20s with partly sunny skies. There still could be a snow shower or flurry around early in the day before the deepest moisture works well to our east.

This will take us back into a pattern that looks an awful lot like the one we have had for most of December. I have been hitting this hard in recent days and it looks as if a lot of other folks are now beginning to see some of the same things. This is a pattern that is going to be very hard to break and this is potentially setting us up for a winter that can go down with some of the great ones. With the December to Remember just about in the books… we are well long our way to such a winter. Back in November… I started seeing the seeds being sewn for a special December and I posted a lot on that. I am seeing a lot of the same signals showing up as I look ahead into January.

Here is a breakdown on what may be ahead of us…

– Typical January cold moves in for Sunday into much of next week.

– There is a small shot at some overrunning wintry precipitation from late Monday into Tuesday as a system skirts by to the south.

– I am keeping an eye on the second half of next week into the following weekend as there is a growing potential for for a storm to develop and roll out of the southwest U.S. into the southern states. This appears to be a favorable period for a winter storm across the eastern half of the country.

– The amount of blocking the models are showing for the next few weeks is pretty incredible. This will lead to colder and colder shots of air for the middle and end of January with a growing risk of a major arctic outbreak for much of the eastern half of the country.

– Oh yeah… snow threats should be plentiful.

Here is what one famed Climate Analyst thinks the next three months in temps will look like…



This is a GREAT READ into the method behind the forecast.

I will have updates as needed so be sure to check back. Have a great Wednesday and take care.