We have quite the pattern across the United States right now and it continues through the remainder of this workweek. Of course the big Philadelphia snowfall of 24 hours ago won’t be the last with another system running up the East Coast Tuesday ahead of the next shot of arctic air which will present the coldest air yet.

Interestingly we have another lobe of reinforcing arctic air now dropping out of central Canada into the Upper Midwest which will present the first -0 high for Minneapolis and first sub-20 for Chicago of the season tomorrow.

The first signs of that new surge can be seen in tonight’s temps (below) with Chicago’s 5 now the new ‘lowest of the season’.

As for that next shot of cold air coming out of the Upper Midwest and Lakes, another system will track northeast ahead of it bringing rain, sleet, freezing rain and fresh snow across the Appalachians and particularly along the I-95 corridor Tuesday late morning and afternoon. Snow also impacts further west over the Ohio and Mid-Mississippi Valleys along the leading edge of the cold with more snow for Chicago Tuesday night.

Here’s the GFS surface chart through Tuesday.

Here’s the GFS ‘snow on the ground’ chart through the next 72 hours.

Close up of the Northeast.

It looks like a fresh 2-4, perhaps 6 inch snowfall for the I-95 which means a fresh reflective surface for the cold air to weaken minimally once it’s arrived. In other words, expect it to turn darn cold across the region once that system’s exited Wednesday.

GFS surface by 48 hrs shows plain old cold!

Here’s the forecasted highs Wednesday.

66.9% Of Lower 48 Snow Covered!

The snow cover has now extended to 66.9% of the country which according to USA is the greatest coverage for this early in December in at least 10 years. Of course all that snow cover, means it’s not going to warm up much anytime soon and of course it will help maximise the intensity of this next surge of arctic air drilling into the Lower Midwest, Northeast and Mid-Atlantic region over the coming days.

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First The Snow Chicago To Philly, Then Comes The Cold!

Here’s the 850mb temps.

48 hrs

72 hrs.

Overnight lows Wednesday night reach the lowest values yet from Chicago to DC as the arctic air slides over top of the freshly laid snow, we could see even colder than TWC’s predicted -1 and the 21’s up the I-95 corridor.

Thursday looks on track to be by far the coldest day yet from the Ohio Valley into the Northeast with low to mid-20s for a high from DC up to Boston.

Bigger Northeast Snow Event This Weekend?

We’re keeping an eye on yet another system which appears to run the eastern flank of the country around yet another lobe of arctic air this weekend.

Check out the below surface chart out 132 hrs.

Both GFS and ECMWF try to take this system to the coast which means potentially feedback and a bigger snowstorm for the Northeast. Lots of fresh cold coming in from the northwest means this could be the biggest event yet.

144 hrs.

That system is followed by MORE bitter cold…

and so the cold, snowy pattern continues….

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Tags: arctic air, arctic outbreak, cold, snow, US Cold