A BREAK IN THE SNOW AND COLD COMING

If you are sick and tired of the cold and snow in the Midwest on this brutally cold Sunday, you just need to wait a bit longer for changes as the pattern is continuing to show major signals for a big pattern flip towards the end of the month. Above you can see the European Ensemble has a rather strong ridge taking over by Christmas week which would shut off the active storm track and favor a generally warming pattern.

Starting Sunday morning most of the area will be below zero under clearing skies and calming winds. The fresh snow from a series of clippers is helping with exceptional radiational cooling as well.

Monday morning will still be bitterly cold in the region with sub-zero temperatures still on the menu, but following this will start the steady warming trend by mid-to-late week.

Wednesday's highs are projected to push into the upper 30s/low40s for the local area with the snowpack keeping temperatures down. Notice the warmer temperatures in northern/central Missouri with limited snow cover.

We are tracking a system Thursday locally that could bring rain and wintry mix to the region. The European Ensemble is pretty confident in a fairly strong trough swinging through the Great Lakes that should have adequate moisture in place for some seasonally-heavy rain in the region.

THURSDAY - The Euro

THURSDAY - The GFS

Our global models the Euro and GFS are well in alignment with this system Thursday. Notice a lot of green as this is projected to be more of a cool rain event opposed to a snow event. Some colder air wrapping on the backside could potentially lead to some light wintry mix, but again for now this does not appear to be a major concern for travel impacts.

The official forecast from the Weather Prediction Center has about a quarter of an inch to a half inch for the Quad Cities region, with most of this precipitation on the map shown coming with that Thursday system. Not too much!

So now let's look into the extended pattern. Based on model guidance today the strength of the ridge that is currently projected to take over Christmas week is pushing into the 90th percentile for height. This is an indication of quiet weather as well as unseasonably warm temperatures. This rather significant pattern flip comes with rather high confidence given some of the teleconnections we look at.

If you want snow and cold (looking at you Terry) the charts above are not ideal. A PNA trending negative and an NAO going positive is about as bad as it gets for snow in the eastern two-thirds of the US. That is even with an MJO sitting in a Phase 8. They are out of sync, but the more amplified PNA/NAO I think is trumping what the MJO is trying to direct. Fascinating, really.

This would again favor warmth across the CONUS. Christmas week five-day temperature anomalies are sitting quite high across the Midwest and Mississippi River Valley. We'll continue to monitor trends going forward!

-Meteorologist Nick Stewart