THE GRUNGE REPORT...

If the dreary overcast conditions Christmas day had you wishing for a bit of sunshine, rest assured you weren't the only ones. As you can see in this hi-res satellite image (which was taken and hand-delivered to me by Chris Claus...AKA Santa), much of the central third of the nation was cloaked in clouds.

Things are not going to get brighter anytime soon, with moisture streaming northward on the southern stream of the subtropical jet. You can also clearly see a circular spin in the clouds over Colorado. That's an upper air disturbance that will reinforce the grunge and eventually bring rain to close out the week.

The 500mb jet depiction shows the bundle of energy lifting northeast Thursday night before it gets absorbed in the mean trough later Friday. It provides the forcing to generate drizzle, and pockets of fog Thursday, with showers entering the picture Friday and Friday night.

The latest model trends indicate light to moderate rains on the order of .30 to .60 inches through Saturday. The GFS which had been significantly higher did genuflect to the lower amounts of the EURO today, which I suspected would be the case. That lends good confidence to rainfall solutions which look like this on modeling Thursday night through Saturday morning.

THE EURO

The GFS

While it won't be pretty through the weekend, it will at least be mild. As it stands now, highs the next 5 days (the remainder of December) will either be in the 40s or 50s. The most likely area for 50s is along and south of I-80, with Saturday and Sunday the days with the best potential. The GFS has the showers ending early Saturday, allowing highs that look like this. If we get lucky, a dry slot may contribute to a few breaks in the clouds Saturday afternoon, but that's a bit of a long shot at this point.

The GFS indicates the highs shown above would be 20–25 degrees above normal.

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BACK TO REALITY IN EARLY JANUARY...

While there are still important details to resolve, a pattern change is coming around the 1st of the year that will undoubtably bring a colder, more seasonable brand of weather. How the cold evolves is still a bit up in the air due to the fact It's still nearly a week away, but I suspect there will be an initial drop that is followed by an even larger one several days later. This will become clearer in coming data. As it stands now, nothing extremely cold is shown through January 7th. We go from these week one temperature departures ending January 1st.

To these week 2, for the period January 2 through January 9th. An obviously colder look.

With the alignment of energy currently shown, the first real chance for any snow of consequence appears to occur in the window centered on January 7th. The track, which is still in flux, does indicate a decent snow in some part of the central Midwest.

Behind the system, the door could open to some seriously cold air around January 10th. This is far from certain but is supported by teleconnections such as the EPO, AO, and NAO. Thus, I think the potential exists for a potent shot of cold air. What I'm showing you are the lows on the latest run of the GFS January 10th. Two weeks out this is very speculative, and I stress nothing to hang your hat on. That said, if anything close to this occurs, we would be in for some very harsh conditions with this for lows January 10th.

And this for wind chills.

I'll be the first to say much of this cold and snowy idea January 7th-11th is speculative. That said, If I did not think there was merit in the pattern, I would not drop it on you. The point here is to show you the cards on the table. How they end up being played remains to be seen. Hopefully, trends going forward revert to a kinder, gentler solution. Meantime, mild weather continues through the weekend. Enjoy it, the warranty expires the beginning of the year! Roll weather...TS