We’ve just saw many Midwest cities break their snow drought following the recent first Big Winter Storm. Many Midwest cities saw anywhere from an inch to 20″ of snow. The focus now shifts to a system that is set to barrel into the Pacific Northwest this weekend into early next week and then drop into the Southern Plains around Christmas where it develops.

With plenty of cold air dropping into the Northern Plains, this system developing at the base of the trough is likely to produce Oklahoma’s first big snowstorm with perhaps blizzard conditions on the backside either later Christmas evening or into the 26th. The system may also bring a surprise White Christmas to parts of Arkansas with a trace to as much as a few inches across northern parts of Mississippi and Alabama on the 26th as the system takes a turn northeast towards Maine.

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Here is the 500mb height chart of the ECMWF for Christmas Day.

26th

27th

Notice in the last chart another system riding the active UNDERCUTTING jet, this could bring further snows across the Central, Southern Plains, Midwest and Northeast from the 28-31st.

The moral of this story folks is that as the snows get laid down, the cold air becomes more established over the Northern Tier but with a still active Pacific storm track, this means snowstorms and a wintry pattern.

I firmly believe that as we enter January, the first half of the month could turn very cold with much deeper arctic air being drawn south over this ever expanding snowpack.

Will try to show the latest temp anomaly charts off the GFS for further down the road, later today. Stay tuned.

More later!

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