A nice day today until rain showers move in late into Sat. Then a dry Christmas Eve with 60 degrees. Renewed rain for Christmas Day as well as into Tues of next week. Then, the pattern turns progressively colder and we may see some light snow sometime in the Dec 28-30th time period. We look to turn much colder by NYE and NYD with winter storms TBD in 2024. Stay tuned my friends! 
Good Morning Les and happy Friday and expect tons of posting next week lol. I leave for Wisconsin on Tuesday so a rainy drive to say the least. Will be back on the 30th. Should be able to post some but not sure how busy I will be with the grandkids. No doubt a better pattern shaping up plus a busy one as well. The STJ is going to be busy and we just need the polar jet to merge several times over the next 2 months. When do we finally get the cold and stormy January and lets hope 2024 is the year.tron777 wrote: ↑Fri Dec 22, 2023 4:42 am Good morning all and Happy Friday! Last work day for me until 1/2/24.
Overall, I still like what I am seeing with regards to the Tellies, MJO phase, and potential SSW or at least a weakening of the PV in the extended range. I do believe it will be a serviceable pattern coming up for snow lovers. For now, we watch and wait and enjoy Christmas with our families.
Excellent post Les, plenty of things pointing in the right direction in the long range that should keep us in an extended period of at least normalish temps for the first half of January .tron777 wrote: ↑Fri Dec 22, 2023 6:23 am Good morning Tim! I don't see any big snow or ice storms yet, but as we discussed before, they will not show up in the extended range very well in this set up. If they do, then don't fall for the trap. I do feel as if we could see some light snow around the 28-30th period though. That does keep showing up with a shortwave dropping into the trough from Canada. Maybe another little something around New Year's as well per the Euro and especially CMC. Otherwise, as I keep indicating, it's a low confidence forecast. I think the overall pattern is gaining confidence but where the low confidence resides is what actually happens at the surface.
I still believe that we see ridging in NW Canada and Alaska towards the end of the month and into January. It won't be arctic cold for us obviously, but air cold enough for wintry weather to occur? You betcha!
Thank you Sir! I do like the 1st week or two of January for sure for something a little more meaningful to occur. It could easily be a swing and a miss and it impacts the Mid Atlantic or the East Coast but at the same time, I could also see an inverted trough or a Miller A type of deal. Both of those set ups can certainly help us out in the snow dept. One thing is for certain, with an active STJ, it won't be dry and cold IMO.Bgoney wrote: ↑Fri Dec 22, 2023 7:28 amExcellent post Les, plenty of things pointing in the right direction in the long range that should keep us in an extended period of at least normalish temps for the first half of January .tron777 wrote: ↑Fri Dec 22, 2023 6:23 am Good morning Tim! I don't see any big snow or ice storms yet, but as we discussed before, they will not show up in the extended range very well in this set up. If they do, then don't fall for the trap. I do feel as if we could see some light snow around the 28-30th period though. That does keep showing up with a shortwave dropping into the trough from Canada. Maybe another little something around New Year's as well per the Euro and especially CMC. Otherwise, as I keep indicating, it's a low confidence forecast. I think the overall pattern is gaining confidence but where the low confidence resides is what actually happens at the surface.
I still believe that we see ridging in NW Canada and Alaska towards the end of the month and into January. It won't be arctic cold for us obviously, but air cold enough for wintry weather to occur? You betcha!
I like qpf totals through Christmas of .25”-.75” for the tri- cities . Similar to other events we’ve had , the better moisture follows the low and leftover moisture out of the GOM is limited into the OVtron777 wrote: ↑Fri Dec 22, 2023 10:51 am 12Z GFS keeps most of the light rain tonight and Sat north and west of us and skirts our local area midday to early Sat afternoon. Not much precip at all of this scenario is right. Then on Christmas Day, the timing of the better rainfall comes in by late morning to midday.
I posted a half inch or less the other day so we're on the same page for sure.Bgoney wrote: ↑Fri Dec 22, 2023 11:39 amI like qpf totals through Christmas of .25”-.75” for the tri- cities . Similar to other events we’ve had , the better moisture follows the low and leftover moisture out of the GOM is limited into the OVtron777 wrote: ↑Fri Dec 22, 2023 10:51 am 12Z GFS keeps most of the light rain tonight and Sat north and west of us and skirts our local area midday to early Sat afternoon. Not much precip at all of this scenario is right. Then on Christmas Day, the timing of the better rainfall comes in by late morning to midday.
I agree about rain totals and again the .25- .75 seems correct. As we know most of this season models have overestimated rain totals the week before only to lower about 24-36 hours ahead of time. They do tend to regain strength over the east coast though.tron777 wrote: ↑Fri Dec 22, 2023 11:42 amI posted a half inch or less the other day so we're on the same page for sure.Bgoney wrote: ↑Fri Dec 22, 2023 11:39 amI like qpf totals through Christmas of .25”-.75” for the tri- cities . Similar to other events we’ve had , the better moisture follows the low and leftover moisture out of the GOM is limited into the OVtron777 wrote: ↑Fri Dec 22, 2023 10:51 am 12Z GFS keeps most of the light rain tonight and Sat north and west of us and skirts our local area midday to early Sat afternoon. Not much precip at all of this scenario is right. Then on Christmas Day, the timing of the better rainfall comes in by late morning to midday.
No doubt Tim and with an active STJ, we should have some stuff to track here soon! Would love to see some light snow while on vacation. Hoping the CMC has a good handle on that upper low I posted on earlier. That would be pretty cool to see to get things started in the right direction.tpweather wrote: ↑Fri Dec 22, 2023 2:05 pm Les the good thing is a storm system in the central plains heading up into Canada and this will no doubt help in bringing down some colder air. Once we get the ridging over the west up into western Canada and eastern Alaska then we can start pulling colder air from different areas plus we may be able to get a cross polar flow early in January
I hope this isn't Lucy pulling the football away just before the kick. I really don't think so though. This new pattern looks to be legit. We have seen model agreement for a very long time regarding this pattern change. And for once the pattern seems to be getting better the closer we get. I really like how the jet stream is being modeled as very active. I really do not believe we will be cold and dry with this upcoming pattern. I haven't been this optimistic for a very long time concerning winter weather threats. Januarys have been very mild lately compared to average. We talk about the warm Decembers we have had over the last decade. Januarys have been pretty mild, relative to average, over the last several years as well. February and March have been the only winter months we have had any consistency in below average temps. And they really haven't been all that much below normal. Probably just average, but with how mild the first half of our winters have been, those months have seemed colder because they have been closer to average. We are definitely far overdue for a below average temperature and above average snowfall January.
Just to add a little more info the models will have a hard time seeing a big storm because of the split polar jet and stj. My guess some of the bigger storms will happen about 3-4 days after the models see the two getting together. We will just need to watch each system and see what kind of energy they have and then go from there. The longer term models for sometime have been showing the upcoming pattern but its always a little scary with each passing week but many other things are starting to line up. Will this mean tons of snow and again that is always tough to call and sometimes you get lucky and sometime not so muchtpweather wrote: ↑Fri Dec 22, 2023 8:58 pm Good Evening and great post tonight. What we have seen this December is the coldest air in Europe to start then heads to Asia and maybe we are next in line. What has been common though is the STJ that goes around the world and we have seen huge snow storms on the southern edge of these cold outbreaks. My guess that will continue but how far south will the cold air go and this is without a PV split.
Some rain showers this morning as we have expected but they won't last all day. Tomorrow is a beautiful day in the 60+ degree range with dry conditions. Rainy on Christmas Day as we have discussed. Then things get more interesting not long after that. We should see a few rain and snow showers Thurs and Thurs night but as colder air moves in with the next upper low swinging thru the region, the snow shower potential for Friday the 29th is looking halfway decent! Even the Ensembles are starting to pick up on what the CMC has been showing. The GFS and Euro also. If this holds, some light snow accumulations are certainly possible with this little system.
