Sunshine and some clouds to rule until Christmas Weekend

Today’s Discussion:

If you recall from Monday’s discussion … “Thursday: Cloudy. Chance for snow showers or a period of steady wet snow. The trick here is does the clipper-like system have a secondary development off the NJ coast (gives us a period of snow) or off the NE coast (give us snow shower)?  I am leaning a little more toward NJ simply because that is what has happened multiple times this fall/early winter season. This is not a big system.”

• Close to being correct. It is a small system. It is moving quickly. It is a clipper-like system. It is moisture starved too. But it is tracking a little further north than I thought, so a snow shower is possible, but that is about it.  
• But because it is moving in a little faster, that means today Wed, will feature more filtered sun through high clouds. So, a little cooler than expected today by a couple of degrees, but the tradeoff is a milder Thursday due to clouds breaking up by midday at the latest.
• Friday: Sunshine but clouds increase with a chance for wet snow/rain toward Saturday morning. Yes, this is a change. Energy coming out of the SW US will have more moisture to work with as it is tapping into the SE tropical pacific. This creates a more interesting Christmas Eve Day Saturday.  
• Saturday: Cloudy. Chance for some wet snow/light rain. This should not be a big system, but it will keep Sat cool, and possibly a little white or wet. If the temperatures cool enough there could be a touch of ice early, but I am not convinced of that.   
• Christmas Day:  Another adjustment. Large storm will wait until Monday to impact us from the west, so Christmas Day looks rather benign here. On the mild side, but more clouds than sunshine. No precipitation is expected.
• Monday & Tuesday: Large western storm lifts to our north with some rain showers for our area. Temperatures cool for Monday as cool air gets stuck in valleys again, but warm up Tue as front moves through. Getting cooler again Tuesday night.