00:00With the forecast feed, we have a lot to talk about as we look ahead to Christmas week.
00:05And here we are in the midst of Hanukkah, and we're stepping out of the icebox in the Midwest and the Northeast
00:12after a tenaciously cold start to December, but a big rebound.
00:18We've seen a big rise in temperatures, and along with that, we're going to see a transition over to rain
00:23with our next storm system, which will be the first we've seen actual rain in many of these areas since back in November.
00:28We've been in a snowier pattern for sure.
00:30A quick look at the snow depth right now.
00:33You'll notice that most of us in the Midwest and Northeast still have had snow cover on the ground this morning.
00:37Some of this is getting compressed. Some of this is melting some.
00:41But some of the snow that is on the map, especially in the interior, some of this will survive this warmer spell
00:49and areas north of that line, likely to retain your snow cover and probably see a white Christmas in those areas.
00:56But other spots, we're not going to retain the snow cover quite the same.
01:00So we need to keep an eye out for potential opportunities for new snow.
01:04And we're going to be watching, again, a series of storm systems roll through this first one.
01:09Again, in advance of the rain, big warm-up here flow from the southwest, driving temperatures upward.
01:17We're going to have a warming setup even overnight tonight into Thursday morning.
01:21And this time of the year, the winds can be more of a driver in temperature rise or fall
01:27than, in some cases, the cycle of the sun rising and the sun setting.
01:31So there will be areas in the New England states, for example, that will actually be warmer
01:35and warming up at night Thursday night into Friday morning with the rain falling until the actual front arrives.
01:42But there will be some chill that follows that system.
01:44This dip of the jet stream here for Thursday night into Friday morning is fairly pronounced.
01:49And, again, there's warm weather, warming weather ahead of it.
01:54But then a front will be associated with this, and that will kick temperatures back down.
01:58So here we are, Thursday night to Friday morning.
02:01And the cold front will be moving on through this area here with soaking rain, milder weather.
02:06Anybody east of that front, though, is going to have a very warm night, Thursday night to Friday morning.
02:11That includes all of New England.
02:12And behind this, we'll begin to see temperatures drop.
02:16Keep in mind the deep blues that you see in western PA and Pittsburgh.
02:20Well, some of that's going to be falling as rain, ending as snow.
02:23And the model here, the way the model depicts things, it takes a six-hour accumulation of precipitation.
02:29It takes the temperature at the end of those six hours and applies the temperature to the color coding
02:33for that whole six-hour bin in the rain gauges.
02:37And, again, that's why the blue looks a lot more robust than it should.
02:39The European model depicts this a lot more honestly there with the Friday morning lingering rain showers in Pittsburgh.
02:46Maybe a wet snowflake or two on the backside of this.
02:48There will be some limited, muted lake effect snow that follows this downwind of the Great Lakes into Friday afternoon.
02:55But it's not going to be that big of a deal compared to other lake effect snow events.
02:58With that said, if you're traveling along I-86, I-90 Friday afternoon,
03:02there will be some snow-covered roads and some dangerous spots.
03:06We'll keep an eye out for that.
03:08Moving forward into Sunday, there is a second system.
03:12So there's the first one.
03:13The second one is going to come through dry for most of us,
03:16but it will be a reinforcing shot of colder air.
03:20And that's going to drive temperatures back down.
03:22You can see the flow from the northwest that follows this aloft.
03:25And at the surface, we'll see something similar.
03:27You'll notice, though, with this transition, very little precipitation south of the New York PA line.
03:33There will be some snow showers and periods of light to moderate snow up in New England for this one.
03:36For a brief time, a little bit of a limited lake effect snow that may follow into Syracuse.
03:42But you're just going to see snow showers on Sunday.
03:45Not a big deal.
03:45So that front is going to just reinforce the blast of cold for Sunday with very limited precipitation elsewhere.
03:54And then we look ahead to next week.
03:56And what you might notice is a little bit of precipitation down here into parts of Kentucky, Tennessee, and West Virginia.
04:03The GFS produces that kind of signature there with potential for maybe coating two inches of snow in Portsmouth, Ohio.
04:11But the URP is a little less enthusiastic.
04:13It has that feature Monday night, Tuesday morning with just some rain showers.
04:18The driver behind this would likely be warm advection, milder air, overrunning some cool air, colder air near the ground.
04:26And, again, the GFS actually brings a cohesive disturbance through the Midwest with a little bit of light snow flurries coating to an inch there in Indiana.
04:35The European, a little more moisture starved.
04:37And the main driver with this would be that warm advection, warming wind aloft over the lower Ohio Valley.
04:45But regardless, it's not a big high-impact event.
04:48You can see this driver here aloft.
04:50Just a little hint of jet stream energy here lifting through the region on Monday.
04:55And in the European, you can see it similarly.
04:58Just a little bit of warm advection there.
05:00But with all that said, then we get into this relatively flat flow time in the days leading up to Christmas with no deep dips in the jet stream unless you're in California and the West Coast.
05:13So that fast flow, the West to East Pacific air, is going to be really bringing some moderate weather across the region here where there won't be a whole lot of precipitation Tuesday or Wednesday.
05:23We'll see some rain where we do see precipitation Wednesday night to early Thursday.
05:27That's Christmas morning in areas around the Ohio Valley.
05:31May not be quite as heavy as the GFS is showing, but it would be mild enough for rain.
05:36And the stakes would be relatively low.
05:38What you will notice, look at what goes on out West.
05:40A big dip in the jet stream intensifies, amplifies.
05:45And by Christmas and the day after that, big dip in the jet stream here.
05:50And, you know, we had a good start to the wet season in California back in November.
05:55Then it got real quiet, real dry.
05:57We're going to get back into it.
05:58Look at this.
05:58A bit of a Christmas gift for the ski fans there in the Sierra.
06:02Widespread snow Christmas morning.
06:04And then again the day following into the following Saturday.
06:07We need the rain.
06:08It's going to be very tough travel weather, though, in Southern California.
06:11So that's going to be a problem.
06:12And then one other thing to keep an eye on.
06:15There is potential the weekend following Christmas for some ice in New England.
06:19A storm system tracks way north through eastern Ontario into central Quebec.
06:25But with that warming wind over some pre-existing cold air.
06:29Pretty good signature in both the GFS and the European model.
06:32There may be some disparities between the two, but the overall message is agreed upon.
06:37There's ice potential following Christmas into parts of the New England states.
06:42Our probability of a white Christmas, once we hit this weekend, we're not going to see
06:45more snow in the northeast.
06:46But there will be some pre-existing snow cover that does survive.
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