We saw one very cold start to Christmas Eve throughout the Northern Plains down into the Lower Midwest with many experiencing the coldest start yet. The latest in what has been a series of arctic plunges, dove south over fresh snow cover, brought by the past weekend storm system. Temperatures yesterday morning dropped to -38 up in North Dakota while it got down to -35 in Minnesota this morning.

Chicago’s -2 was the 3rd sub o low of the month which is running an impressive 15 degrees COLDER than December 2012. 3 sub 0 lows is also the most in December since 2000 also.

The bitter cold got all the way down to Missouri Tuesday where an impressive -28 was achieved at Maryville, the 3rd coldest reading there since 1894. The -2 in Kansas City is the first below 0 low in 1047 days which is the 5th longest streak. Iowa also dropped into -20 territory.

Here’s the latest snow cover across the US and despite the Northeast significantly loosing their snow cover which allowed temperatures to reach the 80s in Virginia, 70s all the way to New York, other parts gained snow, greatly increasing the chance of a white Christmas.

Here was those frigid Christmas Eve lows, helped by cold, clear skies over fresh reflective snow cover.

It’s a cold Christmas Day throughout the Northeast with most failing to get above freezing and as of this writing, snow is breaking out across parts of the NYC and Connecticut area.

It’s looking like another potent blast of arctic air dives south over the Midwest, spreading east ahead of New Year and this could bring even colder air than we’ve already seen to such cities as Chicago, Detroit, Pittsburgh and New York.

In the ‘longer term’ (mid Jan onwards), the strong warming over Siberia which will try to push towards the pole, is stretching out the polar vortex which supports the continuation or even worsening of the already cold US pattern. In the nearer 1-2 week period, the 500mb heights are showing a nice ‘blocky’ look which drives the arctic air south and could well lock it in place. This setup could support ONE BIG ARCTIC OUTBREAK period sometime around the 2nd week of January.

Here’s that strong Siberian strat warming by 240 hrs.

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The 3 big cold signals are also becoming favourable towards New Year into early January and these signals could become persistent if we start to see the polar vortex split.

Talk about a tanking with the ARCTIC OSCILLATION!! That bodes well with stratospheric warming and plenty of blocking with hooking up of the Alaska-Greenland-Eastern Europe ridge.

The positive phase of the PNA keeps the ridge going up the West Coast into Alaska which helps keep the arctic air driving southeast.

To reinforce the idea of a cold upcoming 30 day period, the CFSv2 sure supports that cold January in the east, opposite to last January.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

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