Good Thursday, weather weenies. The weekend is fast approaching and we have a huge storm system that’s going to impact our region with a lot of wild stuff. All of this leads us back into a very cold and wintry setup as we close the year and head into January.

In the immortal words of Arsenio Hall… Let’s Get Busy! (Woof, Woof, Woof)

Today looks like the nicest day of the month and maybe the entire winter. Temps will be in the 50s with a mix of sun and increasing clouds. Winds will be very gusty and that will be the only drawback. Get used to those winds.

Moisture increases on Friday as a cold front approaches from the northwest. Showers will break out early in the morning and be with us off and on throughout the day. Highs will be well into the mid and upper 50s as gusty winds increase.

A low pressure develops along this stalled boundary and rolls northeastward into the Ohio Valley Saturday and early Sunday. This has the potential to bring a round of strong or severe thunderstorms our way. The greatest threat looks to be across the central and western parts of the state. This is also where the heaviest rain will fall…

GFSWind gusts of 40mph or more will be likely Saturday into Sunday as this system moves in. Higher gusts would be possible if we can get some strong or severe boomers going.

Temps will surge well into the 60s Saturday and stay that way into Sunday morning. From there… the bottom falls out as thermometers drop some 40 degrees to start next week.

What happens early in the week is beginning to get more of my attention. The models are starting to key on a piece of energy diving into the back edge of the trough by Sunday night and Monday. It won’t take much for this energy to dive all the way into the Ohio Valley and slow down. That would allow for another wave of low pressure to develop just to our east and throw moisture back into the colder air moving in. The Canadian Model continues to show this scenario…

CanadianThe upper level setup on the European Model isn’t too far away from producing something like that. It may or may not happen, but it certainly bears watching. This is a pattern that takes any chance it can get to spin up systems. If that system doesn’t materialize… watch for something developing late Christmas Day or Thursday.

After this… the cold returns as king. I outlined in my last post what a cold pattern we’ve been in. I have little doubt the worst is yet to come and the models continue to jump all over this. Check out the average temperature anomaly (in Celsius) from the GFS For December 27- January 3…

GFS 2That’s the a rolling average for 8 days!

The GFS Ensembles are singing the same tune with this kind of setup…

GFS 3For those who’ve been reading my blogs for the past decade, you can probably gauge my confidence level just by how many maps I post or how long posts are. This one should be telling you something. 😉

Updates later today. Take care.