Some Thoughts for this Week and Beyond

This Week ... 

As Christmas week continues to unfold, the weather is cooperating rather nicely for most people to travel to family and friends to celebrate together.  The only minor hiccup could be early Fri morning (3 -5 am) for some sleet/ice. But that should be very brief and localized if it even happens. More likely NE our area.  So, yes another rainstorm is on the way!  Might as well the year on a familiar note: rain. Expect about 1” of rain this time.

Then it gets challenging for Sun – Wed of next week, perhaps even longer.

The Set-up:

1. Set-up: SW trough. SE ridge.
2. Moist flow brings plentiful moisture from the NE Pacific across Mexico into Texas, and up from the Gulf of Mexico.
3. Cold air building in Canada.
4. Split Flow: SE trough represents the southern jet, bringing moisture (#2 above). The northern jet basically cuts across US-Canadian border (#3 above).

Possibly Impacts:

1. Two streams interact perfectly. This results in a big storm. Probably rain with heavy snow north.
2. Two streams stay separate. This means most of the moisture stays south, but some comes north.
3. South dominates, and we warm up and get rain.
4. North dominates, and we turn cold, but basically dry.

Models are all over the place. They are no help in this pattern beyond 3 days. As they always struggle with SW troughs and SE ridges. When the trough is overdone, it pumps the SE ridge too much.

I suspect that there will be a weak system trying to move north for Sunday, but it should stay south of us. A bigger system will move NE on Monday into Tuesday. What we get depends on the cold air or lack thereof. It’s a rain/snow/mix option or all 3 at this point, although I do lean more toward wet rather than white.  

Beyond ... 

Some have been asking about what my thoughts were for the winter season as a whole. Well first of all, I do not have the time nor the tools to dig into long range forecasting. Some day maybe (when I retire in 30 years?) . But right now I don't. I do know that some very good private forecasters are in strong agreement on a very cold and very snowy heart of winter from Middle Jan - February. the agreement is quite remarkable. Are they right? I'll let you know on March 1, 2019! In other words, we'll all know by then.  

I do have some feelings about the winter though. 

1. It should be moist. It has been all year, esp. since June. But I see no sign of it changing. (Unless, it turns bitterly cold for an extended period in just the Great Lakes and NE. Then the moisture will be pushed away from us. I do not see that happening at this time.) 
2. Cold air will be available in Canada. Due to the snow cover, it will stay chilly to very cold to our north. 
3. Mild pacific air will try to dominate at times. Right now, we have that. It is muted in our area somewhat because of the air from Canada. But this is a theme I think will keep returning. 
4. Above average snow. Due to the cold air being close by in Canada, and the moisture being available we should see opportunities for snowstorms to impact us. Since we average about 3 feet a season (in valleys; more as you head north, less south) and we've had about 8" already (from Nov storm) we only need another 28" to be "normal". Remember we've had a 30" and 24" storm not long ago. One big one this year is all it might take ...