00:00It's feeding time here on the forecast feed. We're going to jump into next week, Christmas
00:05week, looking at the potential for a little bit of some freezing rain or snow or ice that
00:12may impact travel in some parts of the northeast, but the flavor of the week is going to be
00:16a lot milder, a lot drier, and lower impact there. But in the west, the scales are tipping
00:23in the other direction. We had a good start to the wet season in California back in early
00:27November. Then things got very quiet, dry, and warmer. Well, the storm track is directed
00:32farther south next week, and that will help as we need to get some more rain, more mountain
00:37snow there. It's so important and critical for water supply after a couple of drier weeks.
00:42Let's take a look at what's going on right now. And overall, there's a very big and broad dip
00:47in the jet stream with a strong front associated with this. But in advance of this cold front,
00:52we've got a big warmup with temperatures surging. In fact, a lot of us in the northeast along
00:59I-95, you may begin the evening around maybe 40, 45 degrees. And as you approach Friday morning,
01:06you may gain 10 degrees through the overnight hours because the wind is going to be transporting
01:11warmer air in. Temps in the low 50s early in the day. There may be a few areas up into the New
01:16England states that actually break a record high on Friday before midday. And then temperatures
01:23change. So it's a pretty pronounced dip in the jet stream. Behind this, there is going to be a
01:28reversal in the wind direction. It's going to drive some chillier air in. Some of you up into parts of
01:33the Poconos and the Catskills could see a little burst of snow. Now you can see that this, the GFS,
01:40it plots too much blue. It applies six hours of precipitation into, again, the color-coded
01:47amount. And it takes the final part of that six-hour window and looks at the temperature of
01:52that. So a lot of this blue should not be plotted as snow. A better way to depict this would be the
01:56European model here, where you're seeing rain that ends with a little snow. It's mainly rain. It's
02:01mainly rain in the northeast. But with that said, on Friday afternoon and evening, as colder air rolls
02:08through, we're going to get a little bit of lake effect snow. And again, it's not going to be a
02:11long-lasting lake effect event, but just kind of a quick shot. And also, even the storm itself will
02:16be bringing some snow showers in on the backside of the storm. So again, when we look at the amount
02:22of snow for early Friday or Friday afternoon and evening, it's not going to be much. You can see the
02:27GFS actually struggles to produce any accumulations in upstate New York. But the European is able to do
02:33such a thing here with a coating to an inch. If you're around the darker gray, that'd be like a
02:39one to two-inch forecast. There's a 1.8 in Erie. A coating of snow up into the Poconos, the Catskills,
02:44Watertown, New York, and points east, northeast of Fort Drum would see a little bit of snow out there.
02:49But it won't be much. It will not be much. Behind that, into the second half of the weekend, another
02:55system kicks through. This is a low-amplitude system. So unlike the first one that really has a big
03:02dip in the jet stream all the way down to the Carolinas and Tennessee, this one comes in shallower.
03:07But the wind behind this will be, once again, reinvigorated from the northwest. And that's
03:13going to also spark some lake effect snow. It won't be a whole lot, but Sunday afternoon and
03:19evening. But one thing that it will do for all of us, if you're north of, say, Richmond, Virginia,
03:24it is going to chill us back down. And again, we're going to see another blast of chill that follows
03:30that front. So that's going to just reinforce the cold. I know it's not going to be as cold
03:35as it had been. The Arctic air is gone. But then look at what happens early next week.
03:38We have a big zone of high pressure parked over eastern Virginia. And that's going to serve to
03:45ultimately work as kind of a heat pump, a warmth pump, if you will, driving temperatures upward
03:50and transporting air from the south up into the Ohio Valley. And it's going to warm us up pretty nicely.
03:55And overall, as this high pressure system wanders east and gets shoved offshore, we're going to be
04:01dealing with some more moderation in our temperature set up here for the Ohio Valley, the Midwest and
04:06the Northeast. And again, approaching Christmas Day here, we get into a setup where there is going
04:13to be a storm system that scoots across the Great Lakes. Let's take a look at this one upstairs first.
04:18And here we go with, again, it's kind of a limited one when it comes to the overall footprint
04:23of this aloft Wednesday night to Thursday morning. It's going to be approaching. So Thursday evening,
04:29this rolls through more of the Great Lakes area and eastward. It's kind of a ragged looking thing
04:36here on our 500 millibar chart. It's a zone of more disturbed weather. There's some vorticity,
04:44some spin in the atmosphere. But you'll notice it's kind of riding up over this ridge. So it does
04:49get diverted north from California up to Ontario. And therefore, it's not going to be one of these
04:55strengthening systems. It looks pretty flabby here with the European. It's this zone of disturbed
05:01weather that scoots on through. There it goes. And moving forward, you can see the northern reflection
05:08of that. So what we're concerned about would be some warm advection precipitation. Cold air in New
05:14England ahead of this. Warm air overruns that. And that can put us in a spot where suddenly it's
05:19warmer upstairs. And that cold, stubborn air is dense. It hugs the ground. So we could be dealing
05:25on Christmas night into maybe the day following, Boxing Day for our Canadian friends, maybe some
05:30ice into the Hudson Valley and Vermont and New Hampshire. That's the GFS. Let's see the European
05:36model. It brings us a lighter, weaker. Remember I said it looked a little bit flabbier there with the
05:41upper level flow. But lighter precipitation, but it takes so little freezing rain to cause big trouble.
05:47Even three or four or five hundredths of an inch of that may not be a memorable storm, but it can
05:52cause trouble. And just one quick word before I leave the models here. Look at California. The storm
05:57track, this trough really digs deep into California, reorients the flow, and we're going to see some heavy
06:04snow in the Sierra and also some heavy rain. Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, travel disruptions coming to the
06:10L.A. basin. Pretty good agreement there. Here's the European. Christmas Day, very wet in L.A.
06:15And a quick look at snow accumulations. You're getting into those deep blues in the Sierra of
06:20California. That's when we begin to think about multiple feet near the high end of the scale of
06:25snow. And here's the European with, again, maybe not as much, but still quite a bit of snow out there.
06:30So a quick look at our graphic here for Christmas Day. I'm going to clear myself off so you can see.
06:36Again, chance for a little snow or mix, maybe some ice into the following day in the New England states.
06:41And our white Christmas chances, pretty slim, but some of you will retain pre-existing snow cover
06:47in parts of the interior.
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