Arctic Air, Milder This Weekend, Active Winter Weather in the Extended ??

Hello cold air... Wow, pretty chilly out there ! Not even near record cold (-22 F Louisville - alltime coldest), but still pretty cold nonetheless. Check out the cold air earlier this morning across the upper midwest and northern plains ---- now that's cold !!

The core of the cold air will settle into the region overnight into early Friday (1045mb+ high).

This will likely bring temperatures to the coldest levels we've seen in over four years - or since Christmas morning in 2004 when we hit 0 F degrees for a low.

Temperatures will moderate Friday night into Saturday as another clipper type system moves from southern Canada across the lower lakes then into the northeast US. This will bring accum. snow to places like MI, northern OH, into New England. This system will also pull milder weather (relatively speaking) back into the Ohio Valley for Saturday on rather gusty southwest breezes. This systems trailing cold front will pass through Saturday night allowing for for cold air to surge in from the north - although not as cold as what we have now.

Another H5 shortwave will dig southeast across the upper midwest and Ohio Valley, amplifying the trough some for Sunday. This will put us on the cyclonic side of the upper jet and with H850 moisture present and H85 temps in the -10c to -12c range, we will likely see a wintry day with lots of clouds and occasional snow showers and flurries.

It appears that this pattern will remain in place until next Tuesday... Bottom line, below average temps with occasional bouts of flurries or snow showers but NO BIG SNOWS into next week.

Looking down the road.... well that may be a bit more interesting !! I'm talking in the 8 to 11 day range here. Check out the extended ECMWF H5 chart from last night's 00z run and valid 00z Sun Jan. 25th.

Hmmmmmm ??? some potential for wintry weather across the Ohio Valley. Notice the polar jet dipping into the northern plains and then across the Ohio Valley. This is fine and will likely keep the cold air around, but more importantly, check out all the energy moving into the southwest U.S. in the southern stream. It'll be real interesting to see how this unfolds here as it could (and I mean could) setup a decent winter overrunning event for the Ohio Valley sometime in the January 25th to 26th period. Is it a lock that it will happen ??? Of course not - but it is worth watching.

Weather history:

1932 - Up to two inches of snow whitened the Los Angeles basin of California. The Los Angeles Civic Center reported an inch of snow, and even the beaches of Santa Monica were whitened with snow, in what proved to be a record snowstorm for Los Angeles. (David Ludlum) (The Weather Channel)

stay warm and have a great day all,

Jay