Dick Faurot Weather Blog: Winter Has Arrived, But Not Winter Weather

It becomes official at 10:49 this evening for the calendar start of the winter season.  We have not had much in the way of winter so far though and that trend will continue right on through Christmas at least.  Keep in mind, our normal max/min temperatures for this time of year should be around the 48/28 mark, and as you can see on our forecast page, we will be nowhere close to those numbers going into the coming weekend.

For tonight, clear skies and light winds will allow temperatures to drop into the low-mid 30s resulting in a frosty start and possibly some patchy fog.  Increasing southerly winds and lots of sunshine will push afternoon temperatures Tuesday on the order of 10-15 degrees above normal once again. 
 
Another rapidly moving storm system will move through the state by early Wednesday morning, and the strong southerly winds in advance of the system together with increasing cloud cover will keep us very mild for the Tuesday night/Wed morning time frame.  There will also be a chance of showers and perhaps even some thunder along with a minimal risk of a few severe storms for early Wednesday morning; primarily for the more E & SE counties.

Clearing skies on Wednesday and lots of sunshine for Christmas Eve will once again result in daytime temperatures running 10-15 degrees above normal.  Christmas Day will also be very mild for this time of year along with gusty southerly winds and increasing cloud cover. A slight chance of a few showers Christmas night will become a widespread area of showers and possible storms for that weekend.  Notice the 7 day QPF map and if those numbers verify, we could very well have some flooding issues before the weekend is over.

This weekend storm system has the potential to be a real trouble maker, but keep in mind the system is currently well out in the Pacific Ocean and therefore in an area that has relatively sparse data with which to initialize the computer models.  That can, and often does, lead to some huge run to run differences in the model solutions, particularly for those longer time periods out to a week or more.  

For example, notice the 3 forecast maps from the European forecast model which are all valid for this coming Saturday evening.  The first model was initialized this past Saturday morning, the second one 24 hours later on Sunday morning, and the third one another 24 hours later for this Monday morning.

The one initialized on Saturday shows that by this coming Saturday we will be clear and cool.  Quite a difference though when compared with the one initialized Sunday which has us very mild and wet.  At least that trend continues through the one initialized this morning which also has us very warm and wet.

Will not take the time to show some of the other solutions such as from the GFS which has bounced back and forth from clear & cool for this coming weekend, to warm and wet, to cold and wet with heavy snow.  If you have been following some of the social media or other comments regarding this developing storm system, you may have seem some rather interesting forecasts based on these wide ranging solutions.

Needless to say, the lack of run to run and model to model consistency has created a great deal of uncertainty regarding just how this coming weekend will shake out.  However, at least the most recent runs are starting to exhibit a little more internal consistency and therefore have increased the rain chances starting Friday night through the weekend.  Also, the most recent data runs continue to suggest a lack of cold air so it still looks like an all liquid event for our part of the world.

Having said that, keep in mind this is still a low confidence scenario, and there is a very good likelihood that subsequent data runs will flip several more times before finally converging on a more reliable solution.  Strongly suggest that if you have travel plans for this coming weekend that you keep a close eye on the weather as there may well be some significant day to day changes as this storm system develops.  It certainly has the potential to create some major travel issues for a large part of the country.

In the meantime, stay tuned and check back for updates.
Dick Faurot